Cognitive Dissonance: Part One
by dharmamonkey
Summary: Cognitive dissonance is mental strife caused by holding two conflicting ideas/desires at the same time. The dam broke one drunken night for B&B. Where do they go from here? Sequel to "Costly Signals." AU.
1. Chapter 1: About Last Night

**Cognitive Dissonance**  
><strong>By:<strong> dharmamonkey & Lesera128  
><strong>Rated: <strong>M  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. So, there.

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><p><strong>AN: **"_**Cognitive Dissonance**_" is the sequel to "_**Costly Signals**_" (_**CS**_ for short). We strongly urge you to read _**CS**_ because the events of "_**Cognitive Dissonance**_" pick up immediately after the end of _**CS**_. If you have not read _**CS**_ this story will be, at best, extremely confusing, and will in all likelihood, probably not make any sense at all. "_**Costly Signals: Part One**_" may be viewed under **dharmamonkey**'s fan fic dot com profile, while "_**Costly Signals: Part Two**_" may be viewed under **Lesera128**'s fan fic dot com profile. This story is set towards the end of Season 3, a week or so before the events of "Wannabe in the Weeds." Like **CS, **this work is the product of a collaboration between **dharmamonkey** and **Lesera128**.

And—just in case you missed the hint in the summary—like its predecessor, this work will definitely live up to its rating. What follows contains naughty language and some very, _very _epic unfness. (Consider yourself warned.) So if that's not your kind of thing, no problem. Click the back button, and happy fic hunting.

For the rest of you, fasten your seatbelts, because we promise a hell of a ride.

Like **"Costly Signals"** before it,** "Cognitive Dissonance"** is an edgy little fic and it's definitely not for everyone. We know that. Constructive criticism is both welcome and encouraged, but uselessly mean comments that complain about the edginess or have nothing to contribute are ignored...so please don't flame us.

Now, when last we left Booth and Brennan...

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><p><strong>Chapter 1 : About Last Night…<strong>

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><p>It was well after one o'clock by the time Booth arrived at his office at the J. Edgar Hoover Building.<p>

He'd showered, shaved, and finished getting ready so quickly that the back of his dress shirt was still a little damp from him having not completely dried off before throwing it on. Despite the two large bottles of water he'd chugged and the two extra-strength Advils now swimming in his bloodstream, his head was still pounding from the three double Jamesons and that ill-advised shot of Cuervo Gold that he'd slammed at the bar upstairs the night before.

His whole body hurt, like he'd been run over by a freight train, and he winced as he sat down in his chair behind his desk. _Where do I even begin?_ Booth asked himself, as he glanced over at the thick case file sitting on the top of his inbox. He shook his head in defeat, resignation to the task at hand having finally beaten him into submission. He leaned over to press his computer's power button, cursing silently as the hulking machine began to sputter and twitter as it booted up, stubbornly reminding him of all he had to do and hadn't yet done in the course of his workday. He watched the Windows icon dancing in front of him as it took five minutes just to get to the desktop screen as the computer finished "updating your preferences" while simultaneously trying to download a rather large security update. Booth drummed his fingers on the desk as he thought about how this might be a sign of what was to come that day. _Great_, Booth thought. _Just great. Fine-fuckin'-dandy_. He looked over again at the large stack of file folders, and briefly toyed with the idea of chucking them all in the blue plastic bin underneath his desk so they could be sent off to be gloriously shredded. _Come on, now, _he admonished himself. Waiting for the computer to finish logging onto the FBI's intranet, Booth sighed and reached for the first file on top of the pile of files that awaited his attention.

Booth had just opened the first file folder when he heard two sharp raps on his office door. It startled him, interrupting his newfound rhythm—just when he had _finally _decided to put his nose to the grindstone to knock out some work—and he jerked his head up with an annoyed scowl as he looked to see who it was.

"Hey, Booth—" Charlie Burns stood at Booth's office door with an arched eyebrow and a puzzled expression on his face as he noted his colleague's demeanor.

Narrowing his eyes, Booth nodded once to acknowledge the unwelcome and unwanted interruption. "Charlie," he said, his voice more of a warning than a greeting.

"Jesus, what in the hell happened to you?" Charlie asked. "You look like shit."

"Thanks, and good morning to you, too, Charlie," Booth retorted, flipping the case file in front of him shut as he reached for his Steelers mug and lifted it to his lips to take a sip.

His nostrils flared at the smell of the strong, bitter, stale-smelling FBI coffee. When he was in the Army, he couldn't imagine that it was possible to brew shittier-tasting coffee than the slurry they served in the mess hall. Then Booth joined the FBI, and he learned the bitter truth of how wrong that assumption was. But, as if by divine providence, while working the Cleo Eller case, he discovered one of the unforeseeable fringe benefits of being the FBI's liaison with the Jeffersonian: they had way, _way _better coffee. Not just coffee, actually: coffee, cappuccino, lattes, espresso—if it was some type of hot caffeinated drink, chances were, it was probably available at the Jeffersonian. _Man, what I wouldn't give for a cup of their coffee right now_, Booth thought_. This shit is even worse than normal_. Shaking his head, he set the coffee mug down and looked up at Charlie, who was glancing at his watch as he spoke.

"Uh, just FYI, Booth? At least as far as Eastern Daylight Time is concerned, you missed morning about, oh...an hour and twenty minutes ago, give or take." Charlie's voice trailed off as a smirk broke across his face.

Shaking his head, Booth volleyed back with a growl, "Thanks for the update, Charlie. And, just FYI...you better have a legitimate government purpose for standing at my door besides just being a pain in my ass."

"Not a good morning, I take it?" Charlie asked. Shaking his head, making a soft clucking noise at Booth, Charlie said, "You know, you really should be more careful if you're going out drinking with your squints," Charlie said. "I heard that they brew their own hooch over there, you know, in their spare time, just for fun. One of the techs said the stuff they brew is 160 proof—"

"Yeah, Charlie, I know that," Booth interrupted them. "They're _my _squints, so I kinda already know what they're capable of—" _Especially one certain squint, _Booth thought. _Well, at least, I thought I did_.

"Then, you know they get a lot of practice drinking hard shit," Charlie said. "You should know better than to to try and keep up with that—"

_I'm so not in the mood for this crap right now, _Booth thought. He then narrowed his eyes and glared at Charlie Burns with a steely-eyed look that had stared down far more dangerous men in various situations from combat to interrogations of serial killers.

"_Legitimate _government purpose, Charlie—remember?"

Hearing the renewed sharpness in Booth's clipped voice, Charlie blinked once, and as if a switch had been flipped, he smoothed his tie self-consciously. "I got you the file on that missing girl that you asked for—it's on your desk." He glanced at the piles on the desk and added, "Somewhere anyway. I put it on top this morning." Booth leveled a stare at him at the mention of the word _morning._ "Virginia State Police sent over the complete file from when her disappearance was investigated back in '06."

"Okay," Booth said gruffly, with a curt nod, making it clear that he was dismissed. "Thanks."

Charlie shrugged and gave a casual salute, then walked away.

"Ugh," Booth muttered, shaking his head and squeezing the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger. His head was still pounding, and Booth contemplated if he should pop another couple of pain tablets.

_What a mess, _Booth thought. _What a complete and utter mess. _He took a deep breath, calm and measured, its steady deliberateness at odds with how he really felt. He tried to will away his headache. Booth guessed that willing away the headache was not going to be any more effective than the Advil. _Probably a lot less, _Booth thought as he reached into his desk drawer and began to rummage around for the bottle of aspirin he knew he had stashed in there at some point.

As he searched, Booth tried to remember the last time he'd gotten that drunk. He thought back to the night after his graduation from Quantico. _Yeah, that might have been it—double whiskeys from that cute Irish bartender with the red hair that liked me. What was her name again? Rochelle...Rachel... Raquel? Damn...don't remember. But, she was fun, especially at the after party...man, what a night that was..._

_Yeah...fun. _Booth's mind raced to the image of another redhead at another type of after-party that was very, very fresh in his mind due to the much more recent nature of that particular set of memories. _Redhead? Well, not quite red, exactly—more like auburn, really. But, hell, what an after-party. Oh, yeah. What a night..._

A crooked smile broke across Booth's face as he thought back to the night before.

_Bones. _

_Bones. In bed. With me. Yeah. _Booth allowed himself to indulge for a minute as he smiled at the picture of her in his mind. And, then, just as quickly, another voice whispered to him from somewhere in the back of his mind, _Yeah, Booth, what about that? What about that thing that happened last night? _

He felt a tingle run down his spine as he recalled the way the pebbled surface of Brennan's nipples had felt against his tongue, and the way she tasted—better than any dessert he'd ever had, so sweet and tart and smooth...the way her neatly-trimmed hair had tickled his nose and almost embarrassed him by making him sneeze as he brought her to the edge of oblivion with his mouth...the way he'd _finally _gotten her to moan _his _name the way he'd always wanted her to..._Booth_. He felt himself get hard just thinking about the way it had felt, sliding into her wet, tight warmth for the very the first time, the way her arousal glistened on his swollen length as he pumped her, his hands holding her tight as he saw himself disappear beneath her firm, heart-shaped ass. _And, that was just last night_, he smirked. To say nothing of what had happened that morning...

_Yeah, Booth, and what about that other thing—that thing that happened this morning? _Booth sighed at the memory.

_God, what a morning..._

He knew, he just _knew_—he'd always known, really, from the moment they shared that very first kiss in the rain behind the pool bar, the way her mouth worked his as they kissed that night—that she would give amazing, earth-shatteringly good head. Booth smiled as he thought of how she had teased him—_but then again, turnabout is fair play, isn't it?_—and how Brennan had nearly driven him out of his skin before finally taking him into her mouth again and working him over with that mind-bending suction as her nimble tongue stroked him up and down and drew little circles all along the underside of his cock.

Booth felt his slacks tighten as the memories of that night and that morning flooded his mind, and somehow his headache seemed to have faded in favor of another kind of ache. He shifted uncomfortably in his seat, suddenly grateful for the old-fashioned style of his FBI desk and, even more so, the fact that he was longer trapped in the bullpen.

_Man...what a morning._ _Wow. Just...was that even real?_

As he continued to try to make sense of it all, Booth suddenly wondered what happened to _The Line_: the line he had drawn a year earlier, after Cam nearly died after exposure to that neurotoxin, the line that he and Bones had agreed they could not cross. _But wait. _Had they actually agreed? Or, had Brennan simply acquiesced to his declaration about the line? Booth shrugged to himself. _I guess it really doesn't matter anymore, does it?_ he supposed. _I mean, even if there was a line, it's kinda been blown up and devastated now, hasn't it? What we did last night—there's no coming back from that, right? We_ _most definitely crossed that line last night_. _Wait, right? _He imagined that line now lay twisted, torn and tossed aside, like used dental floss, somewhere between Gleam's downstairs and upstairs bars. He nodded to himself, and thought. _Yeah, definitely blown up and devastated_.

Booth thought back to that surreal scene in the nightclub: Brennan standing next to the bar in painted-on acid-washed jeans, a snug halter top, a push-up bra and three-inch heels, looking absolutely ravishing. He cringed at the memory of watching that loser guy do a body shot off of her, the guy with the pumped-up chest, arms and shoulders and the twiggy legs. Booth thought how close he had come to punching the guy. Had that guy—he couldn't remember his name, and wasn't sure had he even known it—made the slightest move in his direction, or in Bones' direction, he would have laid him flat with his right hook. Booth glanced down at his hand and flexed his fingers into a fist, the burn across his split knuckle reminding him of the entire wild exchange. Luckily, the only thing he'd punched was a wall. It wouldn't have been right, of course, had he slugged that guy. The guy was only doing what came natural: Bones was an incredibly attractive woman, and he came on to her. Props to him for giving it the old school try—there was no way he could have known, just by looking at her, that she was so far out of his league. _Sometimes I think she's even out of my league, _Booth smirked. _But, only sometimes_—

Booth cringed again as he thought of the way he'd laid into her, accusing her of trolling for sex. _"Were you going to go home and fuck him?"_ He was lucky she hadn't promptly turned around and kicked him right in the nuts when he'd started tossing such insulting accusations at her. _Then again_, he grinned with some self-satisfaction, _Bones was lucky she didn't do that either_. Three times he'd made her come that night, despite Brennan's insistence to the contrary. _Yeah, _Booth thought. _Three times,_ he smiled. _Definitely three times._

And, then—the things she said to him: _"I doubt you're as incredible, accomplished, and satisfying a sexual partner as you think you are."_ He couldn't believe she'd said that. "_I have serious doubts that you have any notable capabilities or talents to make any woman who was dumb and unlucky enough to stumble into your bed to leave it with her needs fulfilled. I'm fairly certain you can't get the job done." _That was a low blow—a challenge, of course—and her words had lit him off.

_"You haven't been fucked until you've been fucked by me,"_ he'd told her. _"I'd ruin you for any other man."_ Never in a million years would Booth have imagined he would say that out loud to any woman. _Pops would flay my ass if he knew I'd said that to a woman, _he frowned. And that he said it to Bones—the woman he had silently smoldered for these last three and a half years—it was totally unbelievable, and completely inexcusable. Brennan had rebuffed the suggestion, clearly insulted, and Booth, as if her words had posed some kind of worst case scenario, had exercised the nuclear option when he suggested that she was in fact afraid, not that _he _couldn't satisfy _her_, but that _she _couldn't satisfy _him_.

_I was wrong on that one, _he grinned. _Not that I ever really meant it._

Her words echoed in his memory: "_I'm fairly certain you can't get the job done." _The whole exchange had been so bizarre. _You were definitely wrong on that one, Bones. Wrong three times by my count. Heh, _he chuckled as he stared distractedly at the file in front of him. Three times he had pushed her over the edge, and—as she stood at his bedroom door that morning, on her way out, the taste of his cum still in her mouth—she had, for all intents and purposes, admitted it.

_"Booth? I was wrong, you know. I'm…well, I'm not leaving here physically unsatisfied, no matter what else I may have claimed to the contrary last night, just after—when I said I hadn't. You were right. I was lying. I just—well, I just wanted you to know that." _

Booth shook his head at the memory.

_Yeah, you were definitely wrong on that one, Bones_—

The smug grin faded from Booth's face as his memory ran to what had happened after her admission. She left. She had just _left _him there. Booth recalled her parting words—_"I'll just let myself out"_—and watching her walk out, shutting his bedroom door behind her.

_What now? _he wondered, a knot forming in the pit of his stomach as he watched her disappear behind that door. _Jesus, Bones. What happens next?_

Booth remembered how he nearly howled in anguish that morning when she left, the door latching behind her with a quiet click as her empty farewell—_"I'll just let myself out"_—echoed in his head. Did it really mean nothing to her? Everything that had happened, everything that they'd shared? Was it really that easy for her to just dismiss? Was _he _that easy for her to dismiss? _God_, Booth silently groaned. _It can't be, can it? I can't be, right? _Did he really mean that little to her even before everything they'd shared in the past twenty-four hours?

He'd watched her walk away with an unreadable, almost blank expression on her face, closing the door behind her as she'd just _left _him like that—alone, naked in his bed, his mind trapped behind a thick haze as he recovered from one of the best goddamn orgasms he'd ever had. _God, what's happened? _

He put his elbows on his desk, buried his face in his hands and silently groaned. _What've I_ _done? What have I let us do? Jesus_—

His phone rang and snapped him out of the rolling newsreel of his memory.

"Booth—"

"Booth, it's Cam."

_Fuck. Not again._

"Hey," he said, mumbled into the phone, a bit more restrained than he'd intended. _No rest for the wicked, right? Back to work, Booth. Back to work_, he chided himself silently. Perking up a bit, he altered his tone slightly and said, "What do you have for me, Cam?"

"Oh, nothing major—just her identity," she said dryly. "We checked the dentals from your missing person against the remains that came in this morning," she said. Booth swore he heard her emphasize the words _this morning. _"It's a match. This is Melissa Lauda."

"Okay," Booth sighed, glancing down at the file that he had scarcely read. "I guess it's time to go tell her parents we found their daughter."

"Shall I tell Dr. Brennan you're coming?" Booth narrowed his eyes at the unintended pun. _She can't possibly know, right? _He remembered answering Bones' phone that morning, but surely his wasn't an obviously post-orgasm voice, since it had been, well, at least a couple of hours between the time they'd finished early that morning and when he answered her phone.

Booth swallowed, somewhat unnerved by the prospect of having to visit the Jeffersonian quite so soon when he still didn't know what in the hell to make of what had happened between him and his partner—or, more importantly, what to do about it.. "Yeah, okay," he sighed. "Tell her I'm on my way."

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><p>Booth climbed into the SUV, put the key in the ignition and took a long, deep breath.<p>

_Professional, _he reminded himself. _Keep it totally professional. _He squeezed his eyes shut and bit his lip, grasping onto the thought that the events of the prior evening, that night, and that morning never happened: at least, for the purpose of getting through the next few hours, he had to pretend that the events of the night before and that morning had never actually happened.

_Right, _Booth thought. _This morning, it never happened. _His mind was overtaken by the image of soft auburn hair cascading down and tickling the inside of his thighs_. But, oh, wow. It did, though. Just_—_wow. _

He shook his head and growled at himself. _Not helping, Booth. _He mentally smacked himself as he struggled to get a grip. _Gotta keep it professional, Booth_, he thought. _Totally professional._

He turned the key and took some comfort as he felt the Tahoe's throaty engine roar to life. He pulled out of the Hoover garage and onto 9th Avenue, repeating that mantra—_totally professional, totally professional_—to himself as he maneuvered the lumbering Tahoe through traffic.

The repetition of that mantra worked for about fifteen seconds before Booth's mind was once again invaded by an onslaught of images and sounds and the emotions that both mixed together evoked. In a way, the sounds were the worst part: the little gaspy breaths he'd never heard from her in all the time they'd worked together; the little needy whimpers of protest she made when he wasn't _quite _giving her what she wanted, and the sound of her sultry voice, moaning his name over and over again in a way that no other woman ever had before and—a part of Booth hoped—in a way that only one woman ever would again. He tried to dismiss such thoughts, reminding himself of his overriding duty to keep himself entirely focused on the mission at hand.

But, the sensations kept flooding his thoughts, and Booth found himself unable to summon the willpower to keep himself from succumbing to them. He saw her laying there in his bed, naked and curled up next to him as she slept: her skin so smooth and warm against his, her eyes closed and her face completely relaxed and slightly vulnerable in her slumber, her mouth agape as a quiet, almost imperceptible little breathy sound—one that Booth _knew _she'd complain about if she heard him call a snore—escaping her soft, exquisitely kissable lips. A part of Booth wanted to hold that image close as if it were a rare and priceless treasure—to be hoarded and never shared with anyone else again—but another part of him, a nagging voice of doubt residing somewhere in the dark recesses of his mind, sought to jettison that memory.

_Last night was just sex to her, _that voice said, _nothing more_. _Don't forget who we're dealing with here: Dr. Temperance Brennan, remember? As far as she's concerned, she was just satisfying a biological urge. She had an itch, and you conveniently helped her to scratch it. So_—_why torture yourself? _that voice asked. _Nothing's changed. She will never love you the way you want her to love you. Last night was the best it's ever gonna get, buddy. So, you can either take it, or you can leave it. But, don't you dare be some love-struck kid mooning over a woman who's never gonna give you more than great sex. If you want, take it. If not, then leave it and make your peace with the fact that last night was a mistake. A huge, giant, blundering fuck-up to end all fuck-ups. Accept it. Be finished with it. Move on. End of story._

His phone rang and jerked Booth out of the war that raged in his head. Glancing down at the display, he felt his stomach clench as he saw her name flash across the display: _Bones. _Shaking his head, Booth sighed in frustration, and then slowly pressed the button to answer the call.

"Booth—"

"Hey, it's me," Brennan said simply, as if the last time she had seen him had been on any other normal day when they'd said goodbye after one last round at the Founding Fathers instead of her slinking out of his bedroom in last night's rumpled clothes after saying goodbye with a blow job. "Where are you, Booth? Cam said you were coming for me half an hour ago. Is there some problem?"

He groaned silently. Her improper use of colloquialisms notwithstanding, he knew that Bones seldom if ever uttered something without meaning what she had said. _She's playing with me, right? And, if she is, what in the hell does that mean? Damn it, if I'm as good at reading people as I always thought I was, I should be able to get a read on her of all people._

Unsure if he had the energy or desire to fight her, Booth frowned silently into the phone. "Nope, Bones," he replied. "I'm good. I just hit some traffic on the way over. A couple of stop lights were out, and I got detoured all the way over to Dupont, but I'm almost there."

For several moments, there was nothing but silence on the other end of the line.

"Well, don't leave me waiting, Booth," she said. "I'm ready when you are." Then she hung up with an abrupt click.

_Fuck, _he whispered as he made the turn onto Pennsylvania Avenue and headed towards the Jeffersonian. Unable to make the short drive in silence lest he be assaulted by any more memories of that morning or the night before, he glanced over to the stereo and pressed the play button on the CD player. As soon as he heard the punchy bassline, crisp snare drum and the atmospherically weaving guitar, he smiled. _Floyd, baby, _he grinned, bopping his head to the rhythm as David Gilmour's deep baritone began the song's verse...

_The sweet smell of a great sorrow lies over the land_  
><em>Plumes of smoke rise and merge into the leaden sky.<em>  
><em>A man lies and dreams of green fields and rivers,<em>  
><em>But awakes to a morning with no reason for waking...<em>

Booth tapped his left heel on the floorboard and mouthed the words along with the singer as he maneuvered the Tahoe through heavier-than-usual afternoon traffic, keeping the beat as he tapped his fingers on the steering wheel.

_He's haunted by the memory of a lost paradise_  
><em>In his youth or a dream, he can't be precise<em>  
><em>He's chained forever to a world that's departed<em>  
><em>It's not enough, it's not enough<em>

He glanced over at the stereo as he heard the words, then shook his head and sighed.

_His blood has frozen and curdled with fright_  
><em>His knees have trembled and given way in the night<em>  
><em>His hand has weakened at the moment of truth<em>  
><em>His step has faltered...<em>

Booth pulled into the Jeffersonian's underground parking garage and found a space close to the door that his partner would exit from. He sighed again and picked up his phone, hesitating before dialing. _What have I done?_

_Fuck. Fuck. Fuck._

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><p><strong><em>So, was it worth the wait?<em>**

_If so, (1) please, **please **leave a review and tell us what you think, and  
>(2) add this bad boy to your story alerts so you'll know when we post the next chapters.<em>

_There will be 20 chapters in this fic, by the way.  
>So there's a lot more<em>_ where this came from.  
>The first 10 chapters will post under my name,<br>and chapters 11-20 will post under **Lesera128**'s name.  
><em>

_But please, whatever you do, please leave us a review.  
><em>

_**Lesera128** and I are waiting with baited breath to find out  
>what you people think of this wacky little sequel of ours.<em>

_If we see those reviews pouring in, we'll be utterly  
>unable to resist the urge to post more chapters...<br>_


	2. Chapter 2: Post Decision Dissonance

**Cognitive Dissonance**

**By:** dharmamonkey & Lesera128  
><strong>Rated: <strong>M  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. So, there.

_Thanks to everyone who's left a review so far. We really are grateful for your interest and support. Your feedback feeds the fire and motivates us to keep writing.  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 2 - Post-Decision Dissonance<strong>

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><p>The ride to Fairfax was mostly quiet, quieter than Booth was used to when he had Brennan riding in the SUV with him. Upon his arrival at the Jeffersonian, she had greeted him with an easy nod and a casual smile. Booth wasn't sure which one made him feel worse—the fact that Brennan had greeted him as if it were just another day, with business as usual, or the fact that she was smiling. <em>Okay, <em>he admitted, it wasn't _really _the fact that Brennan had been smiling that bothered him. Instead, it was the fact that she was smiling as if _nothing _special had happened to her recently, as if _nothing_ out of the ordinary had occurred that would elicit a response of some kind—either annoyed, hopeful, angry, rattled, happy, concerned, worried, desperate, excited, or the other ten thousand emotional responses Booth was sure he could come up with if he took the time to think about it. There was simply _nothing _about Brennan's mood or behavior to indicate that, just a few hours earlier, she had been having sex—with Booth, her partner. They'd had sex, but there was nothing about that experience that had seemed to affect her in any way whatsoever. Why the apathy? The indifference? The complete and total lack of any response? Ultimately, that was actually what unnerved Booth the most. _You're killing me here, Bones._

So, he waited for her to say something. Booth figured Brennan would be the first to reference it in some way once she had the opportunity to speak privately with him since, _well, _it's not like they could get much more private than just the two of them, alone, together, within the close confines of his SUV. The silence that hung between them grew as Booth continued to wait for Brennan to be the first one to make a move, to break the ice between them, and speak—to say _something_. So, he waited: he waited to be proven right in that he'd correctly anticipated her response to the situation. He waited to find out that she had over-thought and over-analyzed their encounter to death. That was just what she did—what she had always done, really, and probably always would do. But, a few minutes passed, and then a few more minutes, and still Brennan had said nothing.

Eventually, Booth could no longer simply wait. He glanced over at Brennan, and he studied her face as she sat there in silence, looking out the side window as they merged onto I-66 and headed out to the affluent Virginia suburb where Melissa Lauda's parents lived. He detected a slight tension in her jaw—no more than usual, really—but the change registered in his mind instantaneously when he realized that he had now seen her in her absolutely most unguarded state—peaceful, at ease, just a tad vulnerable, as she lay sleeping beside him in his bed that morning. Booth had, he noted smugly, observed her in a number of _other _rather vulnerable positions. Much as he had just an hour before in his office, Booth couldn't help himself as a smile broke across his lips while he savored the pleasant memories—Brennan, in bed, with him, doing good things to him and having good things done to her—v_ery_ good things. But, then Booth began to wonder if they had been as good for her as they'd been for him, and if they'd meant anything to her, _anything _at all. With those thoughts, doubt slipped into his mind and a very dark feeling swirled again in his belly. Finally, Booth knew he couldn't take it anymore. His decision made, he turned and looked back at the freeway in front of him, took a quick breath, and then opened his mouth to speak.

"Hey, Bones..." he began casually—or, at least, as casually as Booth thought he could convincingly sound given the situation.

Brennan's head turned towards him and her response was immediate. Prompt, but standard. Almost instantaneously, Booth felt his resolve shatter as she uttered two simple words. "Yes, Booth?"

He swallowed nervously. "_Ummm, _hey, _uh_—well, you know..."

"You're going to have to be more specific, Booth," Brennan said. "What do I know?"

Booth swallowed again. _Damn it_, he thought to himself. _Come on, Booth. Just say it. Five little words_—_Bones, what about last night?_—_that's it. Ask her. Be a man, pull the trigger, and ask her the question that you really need to have her answer_—_for everyone's sanity. _"Well—"

Brennan looked over at him with narrowed, pale eyes and an arched eyebrow. "What is it, Booth?"

He sighed. "_Ummm_, well, yeah, Bones. It's, _uh, _about,you know, last, _uh_—"

_About last night..._

There it was again, those damn words. Booth bit his lip, cringing at the cliché. He looked over at her again, noting that, despite the tension in her jaw, a vague smile had crept across her lips. _Damn it, Bones. How can you be so casual, so comfortable, so nonchalant about the whole damn thing? Really? Is it that easy? Did it really mean so little—? _Booth stopped himself. Now was not the time to start something they potentially couldn't finish before they arrived at the Laudas'. _Never mind, _he told himself. _Later. Not now._

"Have you or Zach been able to find anything so far pointing to a cause of death?" Booth asked her, speaking just a bit too quickly, but he breathed a silent prayer of thanks when he saw Brennan tilt her head and consider the question.

She turned to him. "Well, there's a partially remodeled fracture to the zygomatic process, which is the—"

"Cheekbone," Booth muttered. "I remember."

_Of course I remember, _he said to himself_. Putting aside the fact I've been listening to you talk to me about zygomatic this, mandibular that and all that other crap for years_—_what about last night? How could I possibly forget last night's anatomy lesson, my special independent study with Dr. Temperance Brennan? How could I forget when we both know I did well enough last night to have scored some extra credit from you—well, among other things. Right, Bones?_

"Right," she said, causing Booth's heart to skip a beat as he was afraid he might've uttered something out loud. When Brennan merely continued to ramble, he breathed a sigh of relief. "But, because it's partially remodeled, it's obviously an antemortem injury—I'd guess eight to ten weeks prior to death. So, the bottom line is that it's not going to be of help to us in determining COD. Clearly, the injury happened sometime in some way, but I can't speculate at this point as to—"

Booth glanced from the road, to the speedometer, to her face, and back to the roadway again. "You know, I sure hope this isn't one of those battered women cases," he said, a bit of restrained and frustrated aggression creeping into his voice. "I really _hate _those."

A slight smirk danced across her face then quickly vanished. "What? You mean the ones where the putative alpha male loses control then acts irrationally and violently in a fit of possessive rage?" Truth be told, she abhorred abuse cases as much as he did, but she couldn't resist the urge to needle him a little.

"No," Booth said, narrowing his eyes and glaring at her. "I mean the ones where the guy—a total loser, frustrated by his lame, shitty job, his perceived physical inadequacies or else stuck in some kind of midlife crisis—gets all insecure about his masculinity. Then, instead of going and buying a convertible and hooking up with some girl half his age like most guys do, he objectifies the woman he's seeing to the point of treating her in a dehumanizing or abusive manner." He stopped, noticed the strange look that his little tirade had garnered from Brennan, and then added, "Or, if you prefer, a piece of shit who realizes he's a piece of shit when he's forty and starts pounding on his girl to make himself feel like more of a 'real man'—whatever the hell _that _is, anyway."

"Oh," Brennan replied, with a nod and then said, "Yes, I can see your point." She then fell quiet again.

Several more minutes passed with only silence between them. This time, Booth wasn't the first to cave. _This _time it was actually Brennan who spoke first.

"Booth," she began tentatively. "I think this is the part of the case where you give me the background information you gleaned from the case file so that I don't walk into the interview completely unprepared." She nodded at him and asked, "Right?" Booth gave her a look, and Brennan caught the small frown that briefly twitched across his lips. Arching her right eyebrow, she added, "I assume you did, in fact, read the case file, and can brief me, correct?"

Booth scowled at her insinuation. He briefly considered a clever retort, but thought better of it and just rolled his eyes instead as he began to speak. "Melissa Lauda, age twenty-three. Grad student at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg—"

"What was she studying?" Brennan interrupted him.

Booth thought for a moment. "English, I think," he replied after a few seconds of silence. "But, what difference does it make?" he asked.

Brennan tilted her head to the side, and this time, took her turn to roll her eyes at her partner. "Background, Booth. I'm just trying to get a little background. After all, aren't you always the one lecturing me about the importance of context and background in laying the groundwork for a good interview or interrogation?"

"No, Bones," he replied.

"'No' what, Booth?" she asked for clarification.

Although normally, on a normal day, her obliviousness wouldn't have bothered Booth too much, on _this _particular day, he knew his patience was running thin, and Brennan had him starting to lose what little he had left. Feeling his temper flare a bit, Booth tried to curb his frustration as he answered her question.

"I don't lecture you, Bones," he snapped, shaking his head. He really didn't know why he was suddenly so short with Brennan—_okay, I do actually_, Booth thought. _But, even still_— "Whatever." He paused again as he tried to collect himself. "Anyways, based on the interview the parents gave to the Virginia State Police back in '06 when she disappeared, she had just ended a two-year relationship with a guy a couple of months prior to her disappearance. She was last seen at a bar—a dance club in Williamsburg that is frequented by college kids—the night before her roommate reported her missing."

"Okay," Brennan nodded. "So, what did the roommate and ex-boyfriend say in their interviews? Anything significant or out of the ordinary that caught your attention?" she asked.

Booth nibbled his lip as he realized that she had caught him with a question for which he didn't have an answer yet. He hated that feeling—the feeling of being unprepared _and _having someone else realize his goof. Reluctantly, he looked away and finally admitted, "Well, _uh_—I didn't get all the way through the file before I left the office, Bones."

A look of comprehension dawning on her face, Brennan slowly nodded her head and pursed her lips before she said, "Oh, I see." She stopped and then asked, "Did you happen to bring the file with you, then?"

"Why?" Booth grumbled.

"Because," she said. "I want to read it."

"What, Bones—you don't trust me?' he asked, a slight edge to his voice despite the goofy grin on his face. "I told you the part I've actually read. I wasn't making any of it up."

"I know that, Booth," Brennan said. "I just wanted to skim through the parts that you missed so that at least one of us is thoroughly briefed on the case." She narrowed her eyes and gave him a skeptical look. "Of course, you trust me, right?"

"Why wouldn't I trust you?" he asked. "Of course, I trust you, Bones—"

"That is reassuring to know, Booth," she said evenly. "Especially as I was worried that you might have decided to assert some kind of proprietary interest over this piece of FBI property and restrict my access to case information."

At that comment, Booth scowled. "That's absurd, Bones. I've never done that, and I never will."

"You don't let me drive," Brennan pointed out. "On occasion, I've let you drive my car at your request, but you've _never _let me drive the Tahoe."

"Nope, I haven't, Bones," he said, shaking his head with a short laugh. "And, no, I probably never will. Remember, this SUV is federal property that can only be operated by a federal agent, _capiche_?"

"I don't know—"

"It means you're not driving my truck," Booth grunted.

"So, after all that we've shared, you'll trust me with the Lauda case file, but you're not willing to trust me with your SUV?" Brennan asked.

"Bingo, baby," Booth said, his jaw tightening slightly at her thinly-veiled reference to the night before. _Right? _he wondered. _At least she's willing to acknowledge it, right?_

"Don't call me—"

"Yeah, yeah, yeah," Booth waved her off, interrupting Brennan's pat response. "I know, Bones. Don't call you 'baby.' Got it."

"Good," she replied. "Now, the case file?"

Flexing his hand over the steering wheel, Booth felt a burn as the new scab on his knuckle cracked and began to bleed. _Damn it. That's not good. _"It's on the back seat," he said briefly, hoping she had no tart retort to that as he looked at the cut to see how badly it was going to bleed. Realizing it was aching more than actually bleeding, Booth glanced in the rearview mirror as Brennan moved to grab the case file from where he had tossed it in the back seat. As Brennan unfastened her seatbelt, she had to twist and contort a bit to reach the file, and Booth quietly appreciated her movements as she finally retrieved the file.

"So, what do we know about the ex-boyfriend?" he asked with a sheepish grin as Brennan rebuckled her seatbelt and began to flip through the file folder. Booth hoped he would be able to use the question to avoid any further embarrassment over having spent an hour and a half at the Hoover that afternoon with so little to show for it.

Brennan seemed to be stuck on one particular page, reading it intently, before she registered his question. With an almost imperceptible nod, she shuffled through several pages, scanning as she went before she finally settled on the page with the transcript of the interview with the ex-boyfriend. She studied it for a moment and murmured, "Hmm."

"'Hmm' what, Bones?" Booth asked, taking his eyes off the road to spare a glance at her. He _knew _that tone. That tone meant something was up. Something in the case file was off, it had caught Brennan's attention, and she was slightly surprised.

She took a moment more of silence, her faced scrunched into a tell-tale sign of firm concentration that caused Booth to prompt her again.

"Whatcha reading there, Bones?"

Glancing up at him, Brennan replied, "Oh, sorry, Booth—"

"That's okay," he said with a smile. "So, what about the boyfriend's so interesting?"

"He's thirty-one years old—" Brennan began. "Or, he was then. He's thirty-three now."

Booth turned his head and looked at her. "Oh, okay," Booth said, grasping the significance instantaneously. "An older guy—so, wow," he said, flashing his eyebrows suggestively but noting no reaction from her. "What, was she dating her professor or something?" He shifted in his seat, suddenly uncomfortable as he tried to rid his mind of the image that had come unbidden into his brain— that of Brennan's former professor, Michael Stires, his body wrapped around her delicious form, his hips between her thighs, Brennan calling out _his _name in that breathy gasp of hers—

_Enough, _Booth told himself. _Stop it._

"Apparently so," Brennan replied. She stopped and looked at Booth, narrowed her eyes for a minute as she gauged his reaction. Seeing something in his face that prompted it, she added, "You know, Booth, you shouldn't be so surprised."

"Me?" he said. "I'm not _that _surprised, Bones. The things people do rarely surprise me anymore."

"Good," Brennan said. "Because it's not that uncommon, Booth."

"I'm aware," he grumbled, clearing his throat and refocusing his attention on the freeway exit numbers. "So, let's focus on the parents—you know, the family angle. We'll deal with the ex-boyfriend angle later."

"Fine," she said. "Parents are Roger and Delilah Lauda—"

"Delilah Lauda?" Booth repeated, chuckling at the ludicrous sound of the name as soon as she had said it. "It sounds like a pharmaceutical product or a medical condition."

"You're right, it is excessively alliterative," Brennan agreed. "And, it _does _sound perilously close to Dilaudid, which is—"

"A morphine derivative—DEA Schedule II," Booth interrupted with a smirk. Brennan stared at him with a look of surprise clearly evident on her face. He pointed his thumb back at himself and said, "FBI agent, Bones—remember?"

Shaking her head and ignoring the comment, she continued. "She probably should have kept the name she was given at birth, or her accurate but euphemistically-described 'maiden' name which she acquired from her father," Brennan said. She stopped and shook her head in annoyance. "That's still one thing that quite irks me, you know. More than half of the world's major societies are, or were at one point before Western influence, matrilineal in their social organization. It's bad enough that all progeny are given their father's name, but the practice of having a woman change her name to her husband's after marriage is—"

"Yeah, I know, Bones," he grunted. "It's a barbaric, misogynistic, patriarchal practice." He rolled his eyes. "Look, we're almost there, so we're running out of time. Just go on, would ya?"

Brennan shrugged, returning her gaze to the page below. "Roger and Delilah Lauda, ages 55 and 53, respectively," she read. "It says here Roger is a controller for a company that sells specialty steel alloys." Brennan scrunched her nose at the file. "What's a controller?" she asked.

Booth grinned, relishing the rare opportunity to educate Brennan about something. "A controller is one of the top financial guys at a company—like an assistant CFO, in a sense. A lot of times the controller reports to the CFO."

"Oh," Brennan said quietly.

Booth glanced over at her out of the corner of his eye. _Heh. She can look at a pile of bones and discern everything about the decedent, from age, race and sex to occupation and favorite sport, but when it came to basic real world stuff, like how companies are organized, Bones is pretty much clueless_, Booth thought.

"Mother, Delilah—I just can't keep saying that name, Booth, or I'm going to start laughing uncontrollably at the hilarity of it—says here she's a homemaker, but that she used to be a juvenile probation/parole officer for the Commonwealth of Virginia who worked with teenage girls."

"Oh, boy," Booth said. "How long ago did she stop working for the state?" he asked.

"Commonwealth," Brennan corrected.

"Potato, potahto," he said. "Same friggin' difference, Bones. When did she—?"

Brennan turned the page in the file. "Retired from the employ of the Commonwealth of Virginia in July 2004, after twenty-two years of service…"

"Hmmmm. That's two years before her daughter's disappearance," Booth said under his breath, nodding.

Looking up at him, Brennan said, "Wow, you really didn't read this file, did you?"

"Of course I'm reading it—_we're_ reading it. Right now." Brennan shot him a strange look. "I'm driving, you're reading," he said with a toothy grin. "Seems like this partnership is working out perfectly, Bones."

"I meant before we got in the car," Brennan said dryly.

Booth grimaced at the mention of the word 'before.' His annoyance flared as he considered Brennan's attitude. "Look, I don't want to talk about 'before,' okay?" he snapped, turning his eyes and attention once more to the road. "There is no 'before' now, Bones. Just _now_, okay?"

* * *

><p>Booth jogged up the front steps of the spacious Colonial Revival-style home, sliding his hand along the wrought-iron railing, with Brennan following just two steps behind him. He glanced down at the coarse coconut-fiber doormat emblazoned with the words "Welcome to Our Home," took a deep breath and pressed the doorbell. He hated this part of his job more than any other: no matter how many times he did this, it never seemed to get any easier, and the younger the decedent, the harder it was. Booth closed his eyes and gathered his focus. A few moments later, they heard the deadbolt turn and the door open.<p>

A blond woman in her mid-fifties answered, her body half-concealed by the white wood of the door.

"Mrs. Lauda?" Booth asked.

"Yes?" she said cautiously, her eyes darting over to Brennan, who stood next to and slightly behind Booth.

Booth took a breath. "Mrs. Lauda," he said, pulling his badge from his waistband and opening it to show his ID. "I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth of the FBI, and this is Dr. Temperance Brennan." He paused, appraising the look on Delilah Lauda's face.

"Is this about my daughter?" she asked, her voice still strong and firm, but Booth noted a tiny shudder of uncertainty threatening to break it as she searched his eyes.

Booth observed a look of recognition on her face and nodded vaguely. "After the first year, I knew that, if the police came and told me they'd found my daughter, it would be to tell me I finally have a body to bury, not to hold in my arms." She held her mouth open and sighed in resignation to the horrible news that she knew she was about to receive. "In all honesty, I'm surprised it took you so long. I expected you much, much sooner."

"Del, who is it?" A male voice called from inside the house. A man with black hair and graying sideburns, Booth's height, but slightly slimmer in build, approached the door and filled the doorway.

"Who are these people?" he asked.

Booth cleared his throat. "Mr. Lauda, I'm Special Agent Seeley Booth of FBI," he said, flashing his badge. "And, this here is Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian Institution." Something flickered behind Roger Lauda's hazel eyes, but Booth wasn't _quite _sure what it was.

Mr. Lauda glanced at his wife and then back to Booth. "Come in," he said curtly.

Booth and Brennan exchanged a knowing look between them before they followed the Laudas into the living room.

Booth made a quick visual inventory of the room—well-made, expensive, Georgian-style tables and chairs, various porcelain vases and decorative hand-blown glass bowls, framed prints of early nineteenth-century pastoral scenes, and a sleek leather sofa and loveseat set that seemed a bit mismatched with the traditional style of the other furnishings. Mr. Lauda gestured for Booth and Brennan to take a seat on the sofa while he took his on the loveseat. Mrs. Lauda lingered near the entryway.

"Can I get either of you something to drink?" she offered politely, a slight waver to her voice.

"No, thank you," Booth said, and she took her seat next to her husband, her facial expression more drawn and guarded than it had been before her husband's appearance.

Mr. Lauda looked up at Booth, his jaw tense and his eyebrows raised.

"What's this about?" he asked. Booth hesitated. Most people in such cases, with a relative that had been missing for an extended period of time, would have guessed aloud the purpose of his visit. This man did not, and it puzzled Booth.

Booth took a breath, tried to soften his expression, and began to speak. "A set of human remains were found in Maryland, in a wooded area in Greenbelt Lake Park, just outside of Washington D.C. A wallet and other identification near the remains were those of your daughter, Melissa." He paused, allowing them a moment for his words to sink in. "Using dental records given to us by the Virginia State Police, we were able to confirm definitively that the remains are those of your daughter." Booth felt his own heart sink in sympathy, trying to imagine what it would feel like if he were on the receiving end of a visit of this type, with someone informing him that they had found remains identified as his son. "We're very sorry for your loss."

Mr. Lauda swallowed, narrowed his eyes and looked at Booth. "How did she die?" he asked.

Brennan leaned forward to speak. "Cause of death has not yet been—"

Booth frowned slightly and interrupted her. "We don't know yet. The FBI is working with Dr. Brennan here and her team of forensic scientists at the Jeffersonian to find out what happened to your daughter."

"Was she murdered?" Mr. Lauda asked pointedly.

"We don't know yet," Booth said again, his deep voice calm and patient. "But, since her remains were found in a secluded area in a park, we can't eliminate that possibility."

"Oh, God," Mrs. Lauda whispered as she began to cry. Her husband reached his hand over and grasped her thigh, but—to Booth's surprise—did not move any closer to his wife or embrace her. "Melissa…"

"We know that this is a difficult time for you both, and we're very sorry, but we need to ask—did your daughter have any enemies?" Booth asked. "Anyone with whom she might've had a disagreement or some kind of trouble?"

"What?" Mr. Lauda hissed. "What kind of question is that?"

"I'm sorry, sir," Booth said deferentially, "but, as I said, and I'm sure you can understand, we have to ask."

"Everybody loved Melissa," Mrs. Lauda said, her voice choked with tears, as she looked up at Booth and shook her head. "No, she didn't have any enemies."

"What about her ex-boyfriend?" Brennan asked abruptly. Booth snapped his head and glared at her.

"Way to jump in there, Bo—," he whispered. _Leave this part to me, _he tried to say with his glare. _Damn. _"Mr. and Mrs. Lauda, it's our understanding that Melissa was in a relationship with a man for quite some time. An older guy she met at William and Mary?"

"Lucas Hastings," Mr. Lauda spat, his voice strained. "He was a professor of hers in the English Department."

Booth bit his lower lip as he observed Mr. Lauda's manner. "I take it you didn't care much for him?" He turned again to Brennan and shot her a look that said, _don't say a word. _Now was not the time for her to pontificate on her view of relationships between adult students and college professors.

Mr. Lauda grunted. "Look, the guy was thirty-something, dating my daughter, who was twenty-two when they started going out. I just think that's a little inappropriate and very unprofessional given the fact he was supposed to be an authority figure to whom my daughter could turn to for advice about literary analysis, not one-on-one horizontal touch tutoring on a mattress," he said, his jaw hard with scarcely-suppressed anger.

Mrs. Lauda turned to him and, after he gave her a small, almost imperceptible nod, spoke again. "We tried to tell Melissa it wasn't a good idea," Mrs. Lauda added. "Mixing business and pleasure? It never works, and it never ends well." The way she said it made Booth think she had learned that lesson personally.

"She wouldn't listen," Mr. Lauda growled, "and we're not sure why the university allowed it to happen, either."

"It's possible that Hastings' department chair didn't know there was anything they were allowing to happen," Brennan said thoughtfully, albeit abruptly.

Booth considered trying to silence her again, but instinctively held back.

"Although when Agent Booth introduced me, it was in my capacity as the lead forensic anthropologist at the Jeffersonian," she began. "I'm also on staff as a member of the faculty in the Department of Anthropology at American University. You'd be surprised what people keep to themselves when it comes to personal relationships. Often times, very few people know about inappropriate behavior unless there's gossip or some type of complaint is made by a wounded party."

"Even still," Mr. Lauda said. "Ethically, Dr. Hastings should have known better than to take advantage as someone as innocent and naive as my little girl. What type of institution hires unethical people like that?"

"Everyone makes mistakes, Mr. Lauda," Brennan said, a certain softness and empathy breaking through her firm voice. "Especially when a young woman goes away from home for the first time. If she's in a new place where she doesn't know a lot of people, loneliness can help cloud her judgment," she said. "As for the university, they probably didn't even know even know what was going on if Hastings and Melissa were discreet."

"Well, that was one thing I managed to teach my daughter, at least," Mr. Lauda agreed. "She knew when to keep private things _private_...at least until that SOB broke her heart."

"We were under the impression that Melissa broke things off with Hastings and that it wasn't the other way around," Booth said, scratching his jaw in confusion. "Her roommate said—"

"That's right," Mrs. Lauda said, suddenly interrupting Booth. "But, only after she caught Lucas in his office one day during his office hours—well, she never told me exactly what she saw, but suffice to say it was with a student who was much younger, and much more, well, inexperienced than our daughter. It broke Melissa's heart, but after that, she knew she couldn't trust Lucas, so she ended things with him."

Brennan turned to Booth and leaned close to him. "Anthropologically speaking," she whispered, "while younger women are attracted to the benefits offered by choosing an older and more sexually experienced male partner—" Booth held out his hand, his fingers splayed tensely, and he glared at her hard, silencing her.

"I understand," Booth said.

"Do you really?" Mr. Lauda snapped. "Do you have a daughter, Agent Booth?"

Booth blinked. "I have a seven-year old son," he replied.

"Well then," Mr. Lauda said stiffly, "you really don't have a clue. Having a daughter—" Lauda stopped for a minute. He then shook his head as he said, "Well, it's just..._different_."

Booth was getting the feeling that the interview was not going to end well if he continued down the ex-boyfriend path, so he took a different tack.

"After she broke up with Lucas Hastings," Booth said, "did Melissa start dating again? Was she seeing anyone else?"

"No," Mrs. Lauda answered with a sniff. "Not that we know of...she never mentioned anyone new."

"Huh," her husband grunted. "But, not for any lack of trying her part," he said.

"What do you mean by that, Mr. Lauda?" Booth asked, trying to keep his voice even and devoid of any emotion other than sympathetic interest.

Mr. Lauda shot a piercing look at his wife, who lowered her head and averted her glance. "After she broke up with that professor, Hastings, she was always going out to nightclubs," he said. "She'd go in there, get drunk, meet a young man, go home with him or take him home, and then go do it all over again the next night."

"How do you know that?" Brennan asked. "I mean, she was living in Williamsburg, right?"

Booth turned to glare at her again but, realizing the question she posed was actually a good one, refrained and looked over at the victim's father to await his response.

Mr. Lauda's lip curled up in irritation at the question, a gesture Booth filed away mentally to consider later. "She would do the same thing when she came up here for a visit," Mr. Lauda said. "And, then, after she disappeared, when we were asking her friends about her, one of her girlfriends, Marie, told us about how she'd go clubbing and 'hooking up.'" His voice turned dark in clear repugnance as he uttered the last phrase.

Booth nodded. "Do you know how we can contact Marie?" he asked, fairly certain that the information was probably in the VSP file but trying to feel out how cooperative the Laudas would be.

Mrs. Lauda looked up. "I think I have her phone number somewhere," she whispered, looking over to her husband as if to obtain his permission to provide the information. He nodded, and without a word, she stood up and left the room.

"Did Melissa play any sports?" Brennan asked. Booth looked at her strangely, then caught up to her rapidly-moving train of thought and leaned back to hear the answer.

"Why do you want to know that?" Mr. Lauda asked.

Brennan glanced over at Booth, who gave her a quick nod. "Her remains show evidence of an antemortem injury—"

"An injury that happened before she died," Booth explained.

"No," Mr. Lauda replied. "Melissa didn't really get into that kind of thing. She was on the staff of the newspaper in high school, National Honor Society, and worked part-time as a stage hand for the drama club. When she started at William & Mary, she thought about trying to get a column with the _Virginia Informer_, one of the campus' student newspapers, but that whole mess with Hastings kept her from ever pursuing that opportunity."

Booth exchanged looks with Brennan and jerked his head slightly, indicating he was retaking control of the questioning. "Do you know if her ex-boyfriend, Hastings, ever struck her?"

"I really wouldn't know," he replied. "She didn't talk to us much about him, after, well—"

Booth cocked his head slightly. "After what?"

Mr. Lauda looked down at his lap and then out the window, taking a deep breath. "After we told her we didn't approve of her relationship."

Booth sensed Brennan shift her sitting position on the sofa and gave her a look that said, _please—don't. _He knew how she felt about patriarchal control of female sexuality and so on, but this was neither the time nor the place for _that _discussion.

"Right," Booth said neutrally. _This is going nowhere, _he thought. _Time to blow outta here. _

Mrs. Lauda returned and handed him a small index card with a name and phone number written on it in a neat, flowing cursive script. "Well, thank you very much for your time. If you think of anything else, please call me—here's my number." He handed Mr. Lauda his business card as he stood up.

Mrs. Lauda touched Booth's forearm as he walked into the foyer towards the door. "Agent Booth?"

"Yes, ma'am?" Booth said, turning to face her.

"Please find what happened to our daughter," she said.

Booth glanced quickly over to Mr. Lauda, who walked behind his wife and put his hand firmly on her shoulder. "We will, Mrs. Lauda," he said. "I promise you, we will."

As the door closed behind them, Booth exhaled in relief.

"That was weird," he said as he climbed into the Tahoe.

"What do you mean?" Brennan asked as she fastened her seatbelt.

Booth cocked his eyebrow and shook his head as he shoved the key roughly into the ignition. "Are you kidding me?" he asked. "You're telling me that lady spent twenty-two years doing juvenile probation/parole for the State of Virginia—"

"Commonwealth," Brennan corrected again.

"Whatever," Booth growled. "You're telling me that lady spent twenty-two years as a probation officer working with delinquent teenage girls? That kind of thing takes a tough, assertive personality—you know, like Cam's, or even like yours. But this lady looked like she walked on eggshells around her husband. There's something going on in that household."

"You think the father is an abuser who assaulted his adult daughter?" Brennan asked.

"I don't know," he admitted. "But, I'd bet dimes-to-donuts that he abuses his wife."

"What do donuts have to do with spousal abuse?" she asked.

Booth rolled his eyes. "It's an expression, Bones," he sighed. "My point is—watching the way Mr. Lauda and Mrs. Lauda interacted with each other in there, she's very clearly under his thumb, and my gut tells me that's an abusive relationship."

"You think he beats her?" Brennan asked. "I didn't observe any physiological signs that she had—"

Booth shook his head. "There's more than one kind of abuse, Bones," he said dryly. "And that little interaction in there screamed abusive relationship. Emotional abuse maybe, physical assault, spousal rape—I don't know." His jaw tensed as he tried to dismiss his own memories of the nights he lay awake in his bed listening to the sounds of his father beating his mother. "But something ain't right in there," he muttered as he pulled away from the curb.

Brennan noted his mood, but said nothing as they drove away.

* * *

><p><em>Hmm...seems to be a little tension between those two. <em>  
><em>You folks wondering what they'll talk about on the ride back to D.C.?<br>(Hard to tell but it'll probably not be the weather...)_

_If we see those reviews pouring in, we'll be caught up in the enthusiasm  
>and that means will surely post more of these chapters more quickly.<em>

_We're thrilled to see how many people are adding this story to their alerts._

_But we really, really are dying to know what you think!_  
><em><em>[Insert irresistable Boothy brown puppy-dog eyes here]<em>  
><em>

_So please, please, **please **leave us a review. _


	3. Chapter 3: Adaptive Preference Formation

**Cognitive Dissonance**

**By:** dharmamonkey & Lesera128  
><strong>Rated: <strong>M  
><strong>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. So, there.

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><p><em>Thanks to everyone who's left a review so far. We really are grateful for your interest and support. Your feedback feeds the fire and motivates us to keep writing.<em>

**_If you haven't left a review yet, _**_please do so after reading this chapter. We really, really want to know what you think._

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><p><strong>Chapter 3 - Adaptive Preference Formation<strong>

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><p>Booth merged onto the freeway and tried to focus on the road, but kept finding himself stealing glances at his partner out of the corner of his eye. He watched Brennan as she flipped through the case file, pausing every so often to look out the passenger side window as if her brain were some kind of supercomputer processing the significance of what she'd just read.<p>

He suppressed a smile as he thought about all that had happened in the past day. Less than twenty-four hours earlier, he had been with Hodgins, driving away from Greenbelt Lake Park on the way back to the Jeffersonian so the bug-and-slime guy could shower and change. An hour after that, he was hunched over a double Jameson—his third that night—chewing his psychic cud over the horrible day he'd had. And two hours after that, he was in his apartment, drunker than a skunk but completely amped, searching like hell for a way to get his mind to stop buzzing after the bizarre and yet very—he knew of no better way to describe it—erotic verbal skirmish he'd had with Brennan at the nightclub. And an hour after that, she was in his bed, naked beneath him, her skin flush with want. Another flash of desire passed through him—a feeling of pure need that had become all too familiar to him as Booth thought of how many times he'd already allowed those images to run through his mind and distract him that day, and they'd only taken place a mere twenty-four hours before. _God, if it's this bad now, and it's only been a day, _Booth thought, _what's that mean for later?_ His stomach flipped as he looked over at her, her square jaw shifting as she squinted at the text in the fading evening light.

"You'll hurt your eyes," he said to her suddenly, reaching up to turn on the passenger side map-reading light as he tried to distract himself from the problematic thoughts that coursed through his brain. Gently, Brennan's hand shot out, and she stopped his arm, lightly curling her slender fingers around his wrist and pulling his hand down again.

"That's not true," she said, shaking her head slightly. "While it's an often perpetuated myth that reading in low light damages the eyes, in fact, it doesn't harm one's vision in any way."

Booth stared at her, the disbelief clearly evident on his face.

Brennan nodded as she continued. "Now, I'll admit that I've read some studies that seem to indicate that while, if done frequently over a long period of time, such an action can result in eye strain, most of the findings have shown there's no correlation between a decrease in visual acuity or visual impairment, particularly one that's permanent—"

"Okay, so you'll strain your eyes," Booth clarified with an exasperated sigh. "Even still, Bones. I don't want you doing that, either." He stopped, and then feeling the need to de-emphasize his mention of being concerned individually about Brennan too much, he added, "You squints need to keep your eyes well-rested, you know. After all, you can't be a squint, Bones, if you can't, you know, _squint_." He grinned at her.

She sighed audibly. "While I appreciate your protective instinct, Booth, it's really not necessary."

"Uh huh." He rolled his eyes and returned his focus to the rush-hour traffic on the Beltway. "You're incorrigible, you know that?" he said to her with a shake of his head.

She smirked. "Is that today's word-of-the-day, Booth?"

"No," he deadpanned. "It was from last week—Wednesday, I think."

Booth's eyes were still on the road, so he didn't see Brennan's smile at his response. For several minutes, he drove on and the silence between them hung heavy in the air between them. At last, glancing at the most recent highway exit sign that they'd just past in a blur as the Tahoe sped past it, he realized they weren't that far from home. Knowing he was running out of time to set up a game plan about how to proceed with the investigation, he spoke.

"We need to go talk to the ex-boyfriend," Booth eventually said in a low voice. "The college professor. So, uh, what are you doing tomorrow?" he asked her.

"I need to spend the day at the lab working on finding cause of death for Melissa Lauda," Brennan answered matter-of-factly. "It's not as if I was able to put in a full day of work today," she added with something in the tone of her voice that caught Booth's attention.

_Annoyance, maybe_? Booth thought. _Or, is she just being a pain in the ass to be a pain in the ass again? _In either case, Booth decided some type of reply was deserved in kind. "Hey—look, that's not entirely my fault," Booth replied, a vague smile appearing on his lips as he realized this was her first open acknowledgment of the events of the night before and that morning.

"I know that," Brennan said. "I didn't say it was." She looked at him, straight-lipped, but with a glint in her eyes. "So, do you really need me?" she asked, her voice a half-octave higher than usual, which Booth recognized as a giveaway that she was attempting to make a joke.

_I really do need her, _Booth thought, _more than she knows. _

"I mean, if you don't really need me for the interview, why don't you just go down by yourself?" Brennan continued.

_I'd love to go down on you myself,_ Booth mused. _Stop it, _another part of him immediately responded. _Strictly professional, remember?_

Booth shook his head. "No, Bones. I need you for this part," he pleaded. "You know the whole college professor/graduate program/academic culture-thing better than I do." He turned to gauge her response to the compliment by her expression, but she had turned her head away. "Maybe we can wait until Saturday—since it's a nearly three hour drive from D.C. down to Williamsburg..."

"If we can afford to wait until Monday, it might be better than going on the weekend," Brennan said. "If you want to put an academic like Hastings on the defensive, there's really two ways to do it. If we can find out his teaching schedule, that's one possibility. Depending on what type of courses he's got this semester, interrupting a graduate seminar would be better than going into a lower-level survey. Even though there would be more witnesses in the latter such setting, the grad students in a smaller seminar would be more familiar to Hastings, and he'd been more likely to be embarrassed in front of students like them. The second way to do it is to corner him at a department meeting. Catching him in his office won't be of much help since that's his refuge, but in front of his peers and boss? That might be helpful. It would also give us a chance to see who has a strong reaction in seeing Hastings get treated in a potentially punitive manner. That might give us an idea of who else to talk to in the department so we aren't wasting a lot of time talking to all the faculty, staff, and grad students. So, in either case, it's probably a better idea to wait until next week than roasting him in his office on a Friday, when most professors are gone by noon, anyway."

Booth grinned at her malapropism. "_Rousting_ him, Bones—rousting." Shaking his head, he said, "So, are you free Saturday?"

"Why?" Brennan replied, suddenly confused. "Are you asking me out on a date?" she asked.

"_What? _No!" Booth quickly responded. "Driving three hours to interrogate a sexually manipulative college professor is hardly my idea of a date, Bones," he said, his voice turning sharp as he began to think about the subject of the interview. Though he had not read all the way through the file, and knew little more about Hastings than what the Laudas said about him and what Brennan had read to him, he knew he disliked him intensely.

"Why would we interview him on Saturday, Booth?" Brennan replied. "I thought we just agreed it would be better to wait until Monday. Besides, if I can have a good block of time in the lab between now and then, I'll be able to make up for the time I've lost and perhaps work ahead in anticipation of future absences next week."

_Besides, _she told herself, _I need some time to myself. By myself. Me—just by myself. _She knew she needed time alone, but hadn't realized why until she found herself starting to think of nothing but Booth. She needed to fill her mind with something other than thoughts of him—the way he looked, the way he felt, the way he touched her, and the way he had played her like a fine musical instrument that night, coaxing from her moans and groans the likes of which she could not remember ever having escaped her lips before. _Stop, _she thought. _This is precisely why I need to spend some time alone, time to refocus and get control of the situation before I do something stupid again. I just need to have some space when he's not around so I can concentrate._

Booth grunted with disdain. "I didn't agree to any of that, Bones," he responded immediately. "You said _if _we could wait until Monday, it might be a better idea. I never said we could necessarily afford to wait, but you just assumed I'd agree. You can't keep doing that—"

"Why are you getting so hostile?" Brennan suddenly interrupted him, sensing that there had been a subtle but significant shift in Booth's demeanor.

Booth scowled. "I'm not hostile," he growled defensively.

"You most certainly are," Brennan said. "My suggested course of action was the most logical and possesses several benefits that outweigh any potential drawbacks."

"In _your_ opinion," Booth emphasized. "Your opinion isn't the only one that counts here, Bones. This is supposed to be a partnership, remember? You, me—partners? You've really got to stop trying to dictate everything little thing that—"

She was a maddening, infuriating woman, and it was moments like these that made him wonder how they had ever managed to work together as partners over the last two and a half years. Something was bothering her, Booth knew, and he had a pretty good idea what it was. Some people register their anxiety by becoming defensive and hypersensitive, but not Brennan. When something was bothering her, one of two things occurred: either she walled herself off completely, retreating into Limbo to commune with her bones, or else she went out onto the warpath, wielding her intellect as a bludgeon. She'd done it the night before at the nightclub, and, as far as Booth could tell, she appeared poised to do it again here. He braced himself for the coming attack.

However, the ironic part was that Brennan's increasing agitation only seemed to be fed by Booth's response, and without realizing it, each one of them was unintentionally ratcheting up the other's response with each statement they made.

"Oh, come on, Booth!" Brennan said suddenly. "We're not really talking about me trying to micromanage the investigation schedule here, are we?"

"Then, what _are _we talking about?" Booth retorted, somewhat surprised that she'd be willing to openly discuss the pink elephant in the room that had taken up residence between them approximately twelve hours before and hadn't left them alone yet.

"You're disturbed by the fact that Melissa Lauda dated a professor," Brennan said plainly. "And, not just any professor, but _her _professor." She turned and looked at him with narrow, skeptical eyes. "I don't understand why you have such an issue with it. Both persons involved were consenting adults, and the fact that they carried on a relationship doesn't appear to have caused any harm to anyone else, at least as far as the available evidence shows. Granted, I can see why the Laudas would find such actions to be somewhat improprietous, but until any evidence manifests to show that Hastings acted unethically in the tenure of his personal relationship with Melissa, perhaps by doing something like grading her work in a unfairly biased way because they were in a sexual relationship, for example, I just don't see what the problem is, Booth."

"He's almost ten years older than she was," Booth replied.

"So?" Brennan asked. "You're five, almost six, years older than I am. Does that mean we shouldn't have any informal encounters outside of our professional partnership merely because your parents procreated approximately two thousand days prior to when I was conceived?"

_An informal encounter? Is that all that was to her?_ Booth could feel his anger welling up inside his chest like a broth about to boil, its steady simmer interrupted as the bubbles of heat rose to the surface. He bit the inside of his lip hard between his teeth, not wanting to have this discussion now for a number of reasons, not the least of which was that he himself was not altogether sure what had happened the night before, what it meant at the time, and what it meant for him and his partner going forward. But, whatever it was, he sure as hell knew that it was a lot more than a mere _informal encounter—_whatever the hell that meant. Then, a second thought occurred to Booth, pushing its way through his feelings of anger and self-righteous indignation. _Wait, did she just say 'informal encounters'_—_as in, plural? More than one? Does that mean she thinks we'll do something like last night again? Or, was she just talking about this morning? Damn it!_

"Don't tell me that you're going to start spewing the good ole 'age is just a number' bullshit, Bones," Booth said, his confusion and uncertainty fueling his response. His expression softened as he thought again of her asleep beside him that morning. "Besides, it's not like we, _ah_—well, you and me—it's just different, okay?"

"How so?' Brennan asked.

Booth sighed. "Hastings, as a professor in her department, was in a position of authority over her. You and me?" He paused with a dark chuckle. "I think we both know there's no way either one of us could mistake me being in a position of authority over you since you always do pretty much what you damn well please."

_Okay, that first part's a bit of a lie_, Booth considered with a smirk, savoring briefly the image of him pulling Brennan up into a sexual position that he had never engaged in with any woman, each of them kneeling, him driving himself up and into her as his hands worked her over elsewhere, driving her wild as his mouth nipped and sucked at the base of her neck, marking her. _Mine_, the word echoed in his head. _You were mine. _Booth remembered the way her skin tasted, her sweat salty on his tongue. _Authority? Well, _he said to himself with a smile. _A position of authority? Nah, not authority. Domination, maybe, but...hmmmph. _He squirmed a little in his seat as he tried to will away the arousing effect of the memory. _Authority, right_.

Brennan closed the file. "According to the case file, which you still haven't read yet, by the way, his area of specialization is nineteenth-century American literature. Melissa Lauda's area of focus was mid-twentieth century British and Irish literature. The lack of overlap there would strongly suggest that Melissa had few courses or seminars that would have been taught by Dr. Hastings. I assume the FBI or the Virginia State Police checked her transcript to see what courses she took from whom—"

"I'm sure the FBI's or VSP's pulled her transcripts," Booth snapped. In fact, he was not sure at all, particularly because, as his partner had so snidely but rather accurately pointed out, he had not read more than a few pages into the case file. "But that's not the point, Bones," he said.

"Anthropologically speaking—"

_Here we go again. _Booth's jaw tightened as he anticipated her lecture. "Right—it's extremely common for a young woman, particularly of Melissa's age, to seek out an older man as a sexual partner," he parroted back at Brennan in a mocking falsetto impression of her voice.

"While your reproduction of my syntax is quite accurate, your ability to project a reasonable facsimile of my voice's pitch and tone makes your attempt to satirize me somewhat ineffective, Booth," Brennan frowned.

"I thought it was pretty good myself," Booth said with a smirk. He then took a few seconds to focus his gaze at Brennan as his voice took on just a hint of _something _that hadn't been there before when he added, "Of course, I think we both know I can be _very_ good when I want to be, Bones."

_Three times, _he grinned, fairly certain he'd never get tired of mentally bringing that point up, well—_ever_.

"I had no idea you had begun to practice mimicry as a hobby, Booth," Brennan said evenly, refusing to acknowledge his obvious double entendre. "Now, as I was saying, since we haven't had a chance to talk with any of Melissa's classmates or friends, we don't know how or why she came into contact with Hastings. It could've been in a completely innocuous situation. They might've spent free time attending some of the same literary readings or perhaps frequenting extracurricular outings arranged by a student group, like the English honors society. For all we know, Melissa may have simply found him to be the best choice with whom she wished to engage in a physical relationship at the time."

"Is that all it was, Bones? Just sex?" Booth's head swiveled around and his eyes drilled into hers.

"Between Melissa and her professor?" Brennan asked, her eyes meeting his and holding his stare, not willing to concede the point before he did that there was any other two people to whom such a question might apply. "It's a possibility we shouldn't discount. College campuses are well-known to be a geographic space concentrated with youthful aggression and raw sexual energy. We have no way of knowing what things were like for Melissa and Hastings at this point, Booth," she said edgily. Booth looked away at her last statement, but for some reason, Brennan felt a need to add, her voice taking on a bit of an edge to it. "And, even if it was, so what? As I said, she may have been lonely and simply been using Hastings when the opportunity presented himself as a way to cope from being away from home for the first time in her life."

Booth tilted his head and cracked his neck, returning his eyes once more to the roadway in front of him. "Was that all it was between you and Michael Stires?" he asked, his voice hard and his expression stony.

"I can assure you, in my time at Northwestern, I was never lonely—well, at least not to the point that I would've allowed such social deficits to inform my actions," Brennan said, seemingly not taken aback in the slightest by Booth's shift of their discussion from professional to quite personal. "My relationship with Michael was one that was very logical, very practical, and mutually beneficial to both of us for the whole of its duration."

_Mutually beneficial, _Booth thought. _Right. _He remembered how she screamed his name that very last time, and how hard he had come inside of her. _Mutually beneficial. _He was certain that no man—not even Michael Stires—had ever made her lose control and shatter the way she had in his arms that night, and he was certain that he had never come as hard as he came with her that night.

_Mutually beneficial, _she thought. _Last night was that, certainly. Not rational, and probably not practical, but definitely mutually beneficial. And, good. Very, very good. Damn it!_

"So, you weren't insinuating when we were back there with the Laudas that _you _had made a mistake back then?" Booth asked. "If you had it to do all over again, you're telling me that you'd still hook up with a douchebag like Stires, even if you knew then what you know now about the type of man he is? Would you still hook up with him? Would you still choose him?"

Brennan stared at Booth, holding his gaze for a few crucial seconds. And, in those few seconds, the pair of them seemed to communicate without words. Suddenly, Brennan shook her head lightly and laughed dismissively. "I'm not answering that question."

"Oh?" Booth said. "Why not?"

"Because, that's not the question you really want to ask me," Brennan said with a haughty laugh.

"I asked you _exactly _the question I wanted to know the answer to, Bones," Booth said, the edge in his voice increasing.

"Oh, okay," Brennan said, tilting her head a bit. "I get it now. So that's what this is really about, Booth?"

"Was it just sex, Bones? Huh?" he pressed, as his fingers wrapped tightly around the Tahoe's steering wheel.

Once again, Brennan didn't know if he was asking about her relationship with Michael...or her relationship with him. However, still not willing to let Booth off the hook with an easy answer unless he asked the hard question, Brennan stopped. Shaking her head, she sighed. "If you want to ask me about my past sexual history, there's no need for all this subterfuge, Booth," Brennan said plainly. "I thought I've made it quite clear in the past that I have no problem discussing my sex life. You're the one who immediately manifests a series of signs that you're physically discomfited anytime someone merely makes a verbal reference to a sexual organ in any context whatsoever."

"You know what, Bones? That's a bunch of bullshit, and we both know it," Booth said. "I just don't take things like that as casually as you do."

"Then, why if I merely _say _a word of sexual significance—for example…well, how about 'penis'? Normally, if I were to say the word 'penis' in the course of having a conversation with you, you'd immediately flush, become verbally terse, and find a way to immediately change the subject," Brennan observed. _Which really doesn't make any sense to me, _she thought, _considering the fact that you seem to respond quite strongly to—and utilize yourself—such coarse and sexually-oriented verbal stimuli under other circumstances_.

"You know what?" Booth said, biting each of his words. "Forget it. I'll let you know when I decide to interview Hastings, okay?" He narrowed his eyes and added, "That way you can decide whether you want to come, since apparently you consider yourself in complete control in that regard."

_Or not, _Booth recalled smugly.

"Fine," she agreed with a shrug. "That's fine with me."

"Good," he replied through gritted teeth. "Fine."

For several minutes, they drove on in silence. They were nearly home, approaching the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge where Interstate 66 crossed over the Potomac, when Brennan turned to him with a wry smile on her lips.

"You know, Booth," she said, "It seems to me, in light of your recent hostility, I think you might have a very hypocritical view of sexual equities between the genders."

He flexed his hands around the steering wheel again, feeling the sting of his injured knuckle and a vague tingling in his fingers as he realized he'd been gripping the steering wheel so tightly it was cutting off the circulation to his fingertips. He saw the scab glisten with a bit of blood that had oozed from the cut. _Damn. _Booth looked over at his partner and glared. "And what's that supposed to mean, Bones?"

"That means that you seem to have a real problem with young women engaging in sexual encounters where the primary purpose of such associations are so that physical release can be obtained," Brennan explained, narrowing her eyes as she waited for his response. "While I'll admit it's purely conjectural on my part, I think you believe women are only supposed to engage in sexual relations where there is a strong, reciprocated emotional bond between them and their partner."

"Bullshit, Bones," he spat, repeating the curse word more frequently than he normally did at his partner. "Don't you dare to think you know what I believe—"

"I'm trying not to," Brennan said honestly. "But, since you won't openly discuss it, and I have to infer your beliefs from your actions, you can hardly blame me for making such presumptions." She chuckled softly. "Besides, your cultural biases are obvious, Booth," she said, her tone deliberately patronizing. "Clearly, you approve of male sexual promiscuity, most likely as a sign of male empowerment and social dominance, but seem to look very unfavorably on the same phenomena among females judging from your reaction to Melissa's relationship with Hastings. Instead of seeing her as a woman who was comfortable with her own sexuality, liberated and empowered, it would seem as if you fault her for failing to conform to a more virtuous pattern of sexual behavior. Ergo, that belief, of course, would put your sexual mores well within the range of what's considered normal for men who support the patriarchal hegemony to which you clearly subscribe. However, it's also quite confusing to me, given the fact that I know you respect and value women who _aren't_ submissive in your own sex life. Indeed, empirical evidence would seem to indicate that you rarely seek out submissive partners."

Booth had been listening to Brennan's anthropological analyses for two and a half years, more if he went all the way back to the very first case they worked, the Gemma Arrington case, and while he might not know the meaning of each and every word she had just said, he had more than enough of an idea that she was lumping him in with every other sexist pig who had ever crossed her path.

"Wait, we aren't talking about my sex life, here, okay, Bones?" He loosened and then tightened his grip around the steering wheel again as he tried to control his rising frustration. "As for the rest, it's a bunch of crap," he told her. "I just—look, based on the interview with the parents, I've got a gut feeling that this young woman was not the promiscuous type, at least not at the time she started that relationship with Hastings." Brennan rolled her eyes at the reference to Booth's gut. "I'm just thinking that there was something more to the victim's relationship with Hastings than just sex."

"Like what?" Brennan asked. "Should she have only had sex with Hastings if she had a strong emotional bond with him—that is, colloquially speaking, if she was in love with him?"

"I didn't say that, Bones," Booth shrugged. "But, if she was emotionally attached to him, it would explain why her behavior changed so drastically after the break up." He paused for a few seconds before he asked, "Do you think she lost her virginity to him?"

"Possibly," Brennan answered. "But, it's impossible to know for certain. And, to be honest, what difference does that make, anyway?"

Booth sighed. "It's pretty significant milestone in one's life—you know, your first time—and, all right, you know, the first time it happens, you should be in love. You know—totally head-over-heels, strung-out, completely goo-goo for the other person."

"Really?" she laughed, her voice sharp with sarcasm. "Then, how old were you, Booth?" she asked.

"Huh?"

Brennan noted Booth's obvious confusion. "How old were you when you lost your virginity? Or, how did you put it…'overcame your name and managed to lose your virginity despite it,' right? So, your first time? How old were you?"

"Wait," he said. "Why are we talking about this?"

"Because you brought it up—and besides, it's relevant to the case," she said with a tempting smile. "Come on, Booth, don't be such a Puritan. It's a simple enough question. So, go ahead. Answer it. Answer the question."

_There she goes again about the puritanical bullshit, _he told himself. _You'd have thought I shattered that whole myth last night. _A smile crossed his lips as he recalled the wild and unrestrained way he had taken her the night before. _I bet no Puritan ever did that, now, did they?_

"Booth?"

He blinked the memory away, turned to her and said in a low voice, "Sixteen."

"Really?" she asked, her eyebrows raised in surprise.

"Why do you sound shocked?" Booth asked, his brow furrowed in irritation. "Come on, Bones—you don't think I was good looking enough or suave enough at sixteen to get a girl to have sex with me?" He grunted. "That's more than a little insulting."

"I said nothing of the kind, Booth," Brennan said. "I'm just surprised you embarked on your emotional career of romantic attachments at such an early age. Because, you were in love with her, right? Totally 'goo-goo' for her, as you say?"

He grinned sheepishly. "Well, a _part _of me was," Booth said in a rough voice.

"Right," Brennan said with a laugh, ignoring the thought that popped in her head to ask to _which _part of him Booth was specifically referring. "So, there we go. There's proof, in your own words, that your romanticized idea of the circumstances under which young women should be engaging in sexual activity is totally at odds with the way you condone the very unromantic sexual behavior of young men as represented by your description of the encounter where you first had sex."

It was becoming clear to Booth that, no matter how he tried, he could not break free from the conversation's rapid downward spiral.

"Wait," Booth said with a frown. "First, you're putting words in my mouth. I never said any such thing. Second, is there a point here, Bones?"

"If all young women waited to have sex until they found a partner they were in love with and who was in love with them, most young men, in all likelihood, including you by the way, would have had to have waited until they were a lot older than sixteen before having sex. The irony is that you and other sexually-active males benefit from women disregarding the very sexual mores you expect them to observe," Brennan explained.

"And, this is relevant to the case how?" he asked, his jaw clenched hard in anger.

"Oh, relax, Booth," Brennan said, with a dismissive way of her hand. "It's not that big a deal. I'm just trying to help you identify the bias you bring to your analysis of the case."

"Well, I appreciate that, Bones," he replied snarkily.

Booth felt the character of the road surface change beneath them as they crossed the Theodore Roosevelt Bridge and into D.C. The tires made a louder sound and he felt the _clunk, clunk _as the Tahoe rolled over the concrete seams in the bridge. Then, as suddenly as the sounds of the road had changed, they changed again as the vehicle moved onto asphalt again as they merged onto Constitution Avenue.

"How old were you?" he asked her suddenly. "You know...your first time?"

"I was 22," she said instantly.

"Twenty-two?" It surprised him that a woman as smart, attractive, and with such strong sexual appetites as Brennan possessed would've held onto her virginity that long.

"Yes," she said, arching her eyebrow at his reaction.

"Stires?" Booth asked, rolling his jaw from side-to-side as he thought of him.

"Yes," she answered again, glaring at him with her pale, intense green eyes. "It was an important decision. I gave it a lot of thought before I propositioned Michael. In him, I believed I had finally found a man who could provide a skillful introduction to the sexual arts while not placing too many demands on me given my lack of experience."

"You make it sound like it was a class that you took," Booth grumbled. He refused to allow his mind to linger on the image of a younger Bones, laying in bed with Stires between her thighs, touching her where and how no man had ever touched her before. The thought of it sickened him.

"Obviously, you don't approve," she observed, a vague smile on her lips. "I apologize, Booth, for not checking with you to get your prior approval before having intercourse with Michael, but seeing as how all of that transpired approximately seven years before I met you, it would've been both impractical and implausible to secure your prior consent."

Booth cleared his throat. "He's an asshole, Bones," he growled.

"I know that," Brennan admitted, a certain softness coming into her voice again that, if Booth had been a bit more open to realizing was there, he would have identified as a crack of vulnerability coming through her very carefully controlled veneer of calm rationality. "I know that, _now_," she added quietly.

Booth looked up at her, contemplating the apparent shift in her view of Stires. It was a paradox that confused the hell out of him. He thought back to the case involving a woman, Maggie Schilling, the young dancer who was found decomposed in an old refrigerator. He remembered how he hated watching Stires slither back into his partner's life and affections only to use her openness to get access to information on the case—for which he had been engaged by the defense as an expert witness to counter Brennan's testimony—and then do all he could to humiliate her in court for his own professional benefit.

"You deserved better for your first," he said.

"At the time, Michael was the best option available—"

Though he stared straight forward, his eyes focused on the highway ahead, he winced at her words.

"Even still," Booth said. "You deserved better then, and you deserve better now."

His last comment puzzled her, and Brennan wasn't sure how to respond. She sat back in her seat and thought about Stires. Booth was right, of course—it had been mostly about sex. Sex was an experience that she had not, until that point, experienced, and she wanted to know what it was like. But Booth had a good point. Why Stires? He was a more than competent lover, just as she had expected he would be, and her first time was, well_,_ as satisfying as it could be given the circumstances surrounding their encounter. But, that wasn't the reason, at least not the entire reason, that Brennan had chosen him to be her first. Many men had approached her before she approached Stires, a number of men making it clear they were more than willing to engage in everything from a one-night stand to a more serious relationship that incorporated a sexual aspect to their interaction with her. And, many of them had been both physically attractive as well as having several indicators that marked them as potentially skilled lovers. But, what had set Michael Stires apart from all of them was that fact that he had been the first man who appreciated her both for her body and her mind, _and _didn't seem to mind the fact that Brennan liked to be the aggressor.

_Like Booth, _the voice in the back of her head whispered. _Except that Booth would never betray your trust._She closed her eyes and tried to silence the voice in her head. She didn't want to think about that, not now, not—

"Okay, Bones," Booth said as he pulled the Tahoe along the curb in front of her apartment building.

Brennan took a deep breath and reached down to grab her trusty waxed canvas messenger bag. "So," she said awkwardly. "I'll call you tomorrow as soon as I have anything, after Zach and I take are able to examine Melissa Lauda's remains in greater detail."

"Okay," Booth replied, his mouth hanging open a little as he considered what to say after all they had said and done in the previous twenty-four hours. _I'm no better than that jerkwad Stires if I don't tell her something_, he suddenly thought. He watched Brennan unbuckle her seatbelt and reach down to gather her belongings.

"Great," she said as she opened the door and stepped down out of the SUV.

His decision made, Booth took a breath before he spoke. "Hey, Bones," he said, loudly enough that she looked up in startled surprise, her hand on the door.

"Yes, Booth?"

He swallowed hard and leaned over the center console so he could face her. When Brennan looked at him, she was a bit taken aback by how much honesty she read on his face. "I'm sorry about last night—the things I said."

"An apology isn't necessary, Booth," she said, a bit confused as she held his gaze firmly.

"No," he said. "I mean, yes it is. I…well, some of the stuff I said…at the club. It wasn't right—and, well, I just wanted you to know that I didn't mean any of it. I'm sorry."

Brennan bit her lip and sighed. "While I appreciate the sentiment behind your apology, it's not really needed. I mean, I was also party to saying some disingenuous and inaccurate things, Booth. We both did. But, it's a moot point, right? I thought we both agreed that when we settled everything this morning. Everything's fine. So, let's just forget it."

_Forget it? _

She slung her bag over her shoulder and turned to close the door.

"Bones," he said before she could shut the door.

The tone of his voice caught Brennan off guard. It wasn't a tone of voice she had often heard him use, only quite rarely, actually. But, it was one with which she was familiar enough to know that it heralded some type of great emotional truth. She looked at him, her eyes searching his face for the clarity and certainty that she sought in herself, if only he'd ask the _right _question.

"Yes, Booth?"

"I, uh—"

_Come on, Booth. Say something. Ask the right question. Give me the chance to tell you what I know you really want to know...unless_—_would you rather forget it? Forget it? Okay, I didn't really just say that, did I, because that was stupid, Brennan, stupid. _She knew that the last thing she would ever do was forget what had happened between them. Whether she would ever understand it seemed to her an entirely different question. _Booth, please. Ask the right question_—_if you meant to, and if you didn't, then what's the big deal? Just let it go? Please? Please just let it go? And, let me go because I don't think I can do this right now. I don't want to, and more importantly, I just can't_—

Booth watched Brennan's expectant face, and suddenly, instead of asking her the question that he had wanted to ask her, he took the easy way out again—well, mostly. Feeling the need to at least tell her what she had told him earlier that morning, he opened his mouth to speak.

"Uhh, Bones, I—uh, I was wrong," Booth confessed, suddenly leveling his gaze at her. Tilting her head, obviously confused as to what he was talking about, Booth knew he needed to clarify for Brennan. "So, when I said you couldn't satisfy me…" A grin broke across his face. "I was wrong." He felt his cheeks flush with the admission, but he felt his heart begin to pound harder as he started to feel a bit giddy with the liberating effects of his confession falling over him. "Earlier? You know, when it was—just us? _It _was amazing—_you_ were amazing. It was really, really good, and you were good. No, you were great. It was, all of it, it was really, _really _good." He sighed as another memory passed through him, leaving behind a tingle of desire at the base of his spine.

Brennan stood there, one hand on the door and the other resting on the flap of her messenger bag, her face blank of any expression that Booth could read. Mentally, Brennan was trying to rectify the two opposing thought strands in her mind.

On one hand, given how Booth had called her name as she got out of the car, Brennan had been prepared for some huge confession on Booth's part, a restrained spewing of emotional truth, something that terrified her and made her want to flee as far and as fast as she could from him with all due haste if he was going to dictate it on unilateral terms, seizing control from her and forcing her to confront the events of the past twenty-four hours purely on _his _terms. Not theirs, not hers, just _his _terms. And, the idea of facing such overwhelming change on such unequal terms where she had no control terrified Brennan more than she cared to admit.

On the other hand, Booth's subsequent words and charming grins belied a more casual and infinitely more manageable topic of discussion. _Enjoyment…pleasure._ Those were concepts with which Brennan had no difficulty addressing because, for the most part, at least once she had left the club, Brennan _had _enjoyed herself, and pleasure had been there for the taking on behalf of both parties. Balanced. Give and take. _Equal_..

Brennan's mind flashed back to when she had been laying on his bed, and just before he had so deliciously reached down to slide her soaked panties off her legs. "_Stop thinking_," Booth had told her_. "I can see you thinking. Right now. You're laying there, staring at me, while you're trying to figure out what's happening, why, and how you can control it. Stop. Just stop it, Bones. Trust me. I promise you'll enjoy this a lot more if you turn that beautiful, brilliant brain of yours off for a while. Okay?"_ And, he had been right. She had stopped thinking, turned off her brain, and _had_ enjoyed herself. So, what was the harm in letting Booth know that she agreed with him? She blinked a couple of times, then shrugged, deciding to ignore the first issue and concentrate only on the second one.

"Yes, I find that I that I must concur with that assessment, Booth—"

_Must concur with that assessment_? he repeated to himself. _What the fuck, Bones? You make it sound like it was a goddamn science experiment_—

And, suddenly, Booth's own words from their encounter splashed over him like a bucket of ice-cold water.

_"So, you think I can't satisfy you, huh?" he asked her, a wide grin on his face. "You want to collect some evidence so you test that hypothesis?"_

Evidence. Hypothesis. Experiment. The logical progression suddenly shook Booth as he considered their significance. _Fuck, _Booth thought. _Is that what she thought it was? An experiment? Literally_—_is that all it was to her? All I am to her? Shit, is this just because I'm just like Stires was for her_—'_the best option at the time'? Fuck. No, it can't be. I can't be. We're more than that, right? That's not all we were. She can't_—_it wasn't just some damn experiment. I know she said some garbage about evidence, but that's not what she thought—was it?_ _Is that what she thought it was, what we were_—_nothing more than a goddamn science experiment?_

Almost as if confirming Booth's worst fears, Brennan chose that moment to add, "It was an enjoyable interlude—_very _enjoyable. I had…I had fun," she said with a half-nod. Tilting her head at him, she gave him a small smile. "Goodnight, Booth," she said, then shut the door to the Tahoe and walked away.

In that instant, Booth felt that he had been gutted.

_God help me, _he thought.

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><p><em>Oh boy. Those two really need to get their act together, don't they?<br>_

_I wonder what'll happen next...  
><em>

_If we see those reviews pouring in, we'll be caught up in the enthusiasm  
>and that means will surely post more of these chapters more quickly.<em>

_We're thrilled to see how many people are adding this story to their alerts._

_But we really, really are dying to know what you think!_  
><em><em>[Insert irresistable Boothy brown puppy-dog eyes here]<em>  
><em>

_So please, please, **please **leave us a review. _


	4. Chapter 4: The Thin Ice

**Cognitive Dissonance  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128  
><strong>Rated: <strong>M**  
>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

* * *

><p><strong>Unf alert:<strong> _Yeah, you know...unf, the tingly stuff. Yeah, that kind. _We're_ sure you'll all be terribly disappointed to hear that this chapter includes some serious unfage. You've been warned. (Sure—like any of you are going to stop reading now...)_

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 4 - The Thin Ice<strong>

* * *

><p>After dropping Brennan off at her apartment, Booth felt far too agitated to go straight home.<p>

Her words still rang in his head: _Informal encounters_..._mutually beneficial_..._must concur with that assessment_..._an enjoyable interlude_.

_Fuck, Bones, _Booth thought morosely. _Fuck._

Glancing at the clock on the dashboard, Booth saw that it was still fairly early. He knew that if he went home in his current mindset, he would just end up scaling the walls of his apartment anyway. Another thought occurred to him. _I need to go someplace where I can get her out of my fucking mind. Someplace I don't have to think—just get her out of my head_. He knew he had a few choices. First, he could go grab a drink. _Right, _he told himself. _We all know how well that turned out the last time I went with that one, so no. _Second, he could go for a run—perhaps from the Capitol, along the National Mall, past the Washington Monument and the Reflecting Pool, past the Vietnam Veterans and Korean Veterans Memorials to the Lincoln Memorial and then down Ohio Drive through West Potomac Park, then back again to the Capitol. Booth briefly considered it, and then his mind was flooded with images of all the times he had spent with Brennan on the Mall. _I need to get away from her, not run to her for fuck's sake_—_so, no. _The third and final option—going to the one place where Brennan's influence was the least tangible because it was Booth's space alone—seemed to be the best, particularly when he thought about how his attempt to work out his frustration the night before had been a sound idea, but ultimately ineffective on account of the crappy equipment he had at home. _But, the Hoover. _Booth nodded silently. _Yeah, _he told himself. _I'll go to the Hoover and hit the gym. _He could almost feel his muscles burning and the beads of sweat dribbling down his arms just thinking about it. _That'll work_, Booth thought. His decision made, Booth drove in the direction of the J. Edgar Hoover Building and its well-equipped basement gym with a plan to work out until he was exhausted and then go home to collapse into a dreamless slumber.

Although it was well after five o'clock by the time he got there, it was still early enough that there were other people working out in the gym. So, after ducking into the men's locker room to change into black mesh shorts and a standard-issue grey FBI T-shirt, Booth made his way over to the free weights area.

The prior night's weight lifting session had been far too short and grossly inadequate to cause any significant strain to any of his muscle groups. While his other early morning activities had satisfied at least some of his cardio requirements for the day, Booth recalled with a smirk, he was glad to have someone else to lift with who could spot him so that he could lift enough to make this workout count for something. He casually greeted a few of the other off-duty agents before he found someone who had come in just after him. Without either man saying a word to the other, each merely giving the other a wordless upward jerk of his chin and a corresponding nod of his head, the two agreed to spot one another. After a quick warm-up set of ten reps at a lower weight of 100 pounds, Booth could safely lift his usual 285 pounds—a very respectable 150% of his body weight, which he was proud to say put him among the strongest agents in the D.C. office in terms of bench press. The burn in his chest, arms and shoulders felt good, and after reciprocating for the other agent who had spotted him, he headed over to the boxing set-up in the corner.

Booth reached into the duffel bag he had stashed in the corner of the gym and retrieved his hand-wraps. As he unrolled the wrapping tape, he glanced down at the bruise on his knuckles from the night before. The skin over his second knuckle was still red, raw and swollen, and the oozing split in the skin had started to scab over, a tangible reminder of all that had happened and exactly what—or, rather, _who_—Booth had come to the gym to put out of his mind for just a little while. His heart racing as he merely thought of her, he knew he was already losing the battle as he struggled to retain some type of control of the situation. _Damn, Booth. Come on. Get a grip_. Realizing that the first thing he needed to do was calm down, Booth remembered his sniper training and tried controlling his breathing by exhaling slowly through his nose as he sought to fend away the creeping tendrils of memories that nagged his mind. He wrapped the tape tightly around the wrist, thumb and knuckles of each hand in a measured and methodical pattern, then walked up to the punching bag.

Booth stared for several long moments at the heavy bag that hung from the ceiling on a thick, galvanized steel chain, trying to concentrate as much of his confusion, frustration, and anger into a single effort. He took a step back, dropped his shoulders, then, after a quick juke to the left and then the right—old Sloppy Joe Nolan's move—he cocked his arm back and began his assault, unloading on the punching bag. With a loud grunt, he slugged it with a hard right to the middle of the bag, followed by a left hook that connected on the upper half of the bag. Even with the wrap, it stung when his right hand, with its split knuckle, contacted the bag. But, Booth reminded himself, it was a good kind of pain, the kind that simultaneously reminded him of both his strength and his vulnerability. The sensations of pain kept his mind focused on the here and now—what he was doing in _this _moment that demanded he not dwell on what he had been doing before or with whom. He kept at it for fifteen, almost twenty minutes, pounding the bag with every ounce of force and energy he could muster in a mindless, repetitive motion.

The rhythm soothed Booth, and he didn't realize how tired he actually was until his sweat-soaked T-shirt stuck to his chest like a second skin and his arms hung from his shoulders like lead weights. Satisfied that he had achieved as grueling a workout as possible, he bent down to retrieve his duffel bag. He reached inside for a towel, and mopped up the sweat that was pouring down his forehead and off the back of his neck. Tossing the damp towel back into his bag, Booth retrieved a bottle of water. Sucking down half of its lukewarm contents in a few gulps, he immediately started to feel a bit better. He was tired, but in a satisfying way. Knowing he had done all he could and that he had burned off the twitchiness that had been troubling him just an hour earlier, he slung his duffel bag over his shoulder and peeled the wraps off his hands as he walked back to the locker room to shower and change.

As Booth walked up the stairs to his apartment, he smiled as he noted that part of his plan was already working. He was exhausted. It was a good kind of exhaustion: the mind-numbing kind that left behind a low-hanging haze that he hoped would obscure the recent complexities of his life, even if it just for a little while—and, at least on the ride home, it had.

However, Booth's steady state of mental numbness fractured as soon as he arrived at the door of his apartment. His usually adroit fingers seemed to have a mind of their own as they refused to cooperate with the orders issued by his mind. In an unusual moment of clumsiness, Booth fumbled his keys as he tried to unlock the front door to his apartment. Losing his grasp on them, he watched in annoyance as they clattered to the floor and landed next to the gray decorative rock that stood outside his door. He bent to retrieve them with one swift grab and merely shook his head and pursed his lips in frustration as he recalled how the surreal encounter the night before had started after Brennan had launched her impromptu attack on his rock when she couldn't find his spare key. _Makes you sorta wonder what she would've done if she'd found the key and caught me_, h_e_ wondered. _How long was she out there? Would she have come in and found me cursing at that goddamn TV show_, Moonlighting_? Or was she out there even longer? Was she there when I was in the shower? _He cringed at the thought. _Was she really that close when I was thinking about her, and if she had been, what would've happened if she'd found me doing what I was doing in the shower because of her_? Booth sighed and ran his hand through his still-damp hair. _Fuck me, _he grumbled. _This is nuts_.

Pushing such maudlin thoughts out of his mind, Booth jammed the key into the deadbolt and turned it roughly as the lock opened with a _clack_. He didn't spare the rock—or Brennan—a second thought as he entered his apartment, dropped his duffel bag on a chair near the doorway and walked into the kitchen with a white plastic bag containing a six-pack of beer he had picked up on the way home. Popping the beer into the fridge, Booth trudged out of the kitchen and into his bathroom. He grabbed a towel, and absentmindedly rubbed his damp hair a bit more before going back into his bedroom. Booth look away from the messy and unmade bed, the sheets sweat-creased and tangled, his two pillows laying one in front of the other against the headboard where he'd leaned back that morning while—

_No_.

Booth squeezed his eyes shut as he tried to flush the memory from his mind. He refused to think of what he'd been being doing there and with whom only hours earlier. He wondered if he'd still be able to smell her scent lingering on the sheets if he concentrated really hard. _Nope, _he thought sullenly. _You're not doing this, Booth. That's not a part of the plan, so cut it the fuck out_. He glanced at the bed again, shook his head with a long sigh. _Maybe I'll just crash on the couch and change the sheets in the morning. _He considered whether his back would punish him for it in the morning, then shook off the thought.

Opening his dresser drawer, Booth pulled out the first pair of clean skivvies he could lay his hands on before he quickly stripped, tossing the towel and his casual clothes in a pile in the far corner of his bedroom. Not wanting to linger any longer than necessary—and quite annoyed at himself for suddenly becoming unwilling to stay in even his _own _bedroom...because of _her_—he quickly changed into boxer shorts and a comfortable black wife-beater t-shirt.

He didn't plan on staying awake all that long: he just wanted to take a few minutes to decompress and unwind, maybe just long enough to have a beer, check to see what was on the TV, and chill out a little before going to sleep. Stopping by the kitchen on his way back from the bedroom, Booth grabbed a cold bottle of Yuengling from the fridge and then walked to the living room where he plopped himself down on his couch.

Reaching for the remote, Booth turned on ESPN and was pleased with what he saw—the NHL game of the night was night was _his _team, the Flyers, playing their hated rivals, the New York Rangers. _Maybe my luck's changing_, Booth thought, as he lifted the bottle of beer to his lips. _Though it might be said I got lucky last night and look how well that turned out, _he noted grimly. He shook away the thought, drew a long pull from the bottle and winced slightly as the cold beer rolled across his teeth and over his tongue.

Savoring the refreshing flavor of the cold beer, Booth smiled as he realized that the beer tasted good enough that it wasn't as old as he feared it might have been when he bought it. _Nope_, Booth thought, taking another sip. _Definitely not skunky. Excellent. _The six-pack was one that he'd picked up on the way home from the Hoover, and he hadn't expected much from the gas station he had stopped at to purchase it—a classic example of an impulse buy. But, at the time, Booth decided that if anyone both needed and deserved a beer after the day he'd had, it was him. Leaning back against the soft cushions of his couch, he glanced at the TV and decided that he would only watch for a few minutes—to clear his mind, he told himself.

However, soon one period had turned into two. Before he knew what had happened, Booth spent the better part of forty-five minutes watching the Flyers build up a respectable lead only to start to blow it towards the end of the second period. The net effect of it all was that watching the game proved anything but relaxing for him. By the end of the second period of play, and Booth's third (and thankfully, non-skunky) Yuengling, the Flyers had managed to squander a 2-0 lead to fall behind 4-2 after the Rangers converted two power plays into goals. The Flyers not only failed to covert on any of their second period power plays, but managed to flub one of them so badly that they narrowly escaped a fifth, short-handed Ranger goal only on account of their goalie's quick reflexes. Starting to become depressed at the Flyers' pathetic performance, and deciding that his luck had indeed _not _begun to change, by the beginning of the third period, Booth's focus began to wane. As the middle of that period approached, he fell asleep as the droning hockey play-by-play and the hum of his window A/C unit lulled him into a hypnotic state that made drifting off quite easy given his earlier physical exertions.

His head leaning back into the couch's pillows, his mouth open, and the remote control balanced in the crook where his thigh and hip met, Booth slept…but, more dangerously, he also dreamed.

At first, Booth wasn't even sure that he was dreaming. For him, the scene in which he found himself was fairly normal—routine, even, given where he'd been only a couple of hours before. He found himself back at the gym at the Hoover, getting ready to work out on a weekday evening after a long day in the field. He didn't think he'd have enough energy to put in a decent workout given the bitch of a day he'd had in the field, but once he'd gotten back to the Hoover, every time he thought of his partner, a flash of energy spurred him on and renewed his focus.

Brennan had been in rare form that afternoon, rearing up against every male law enforcement officer within a half-mile radius. She'd spent hours lambasting their lack of training, skills, professionalism, and intelligence. Each insult she threw at the seemingly endless line of sergeants, lieutenants, troopers, deputies, sheriffs, detectives, and local officials was tallied on a large digital scoreboard in the background that made Booth wince once he realized that for each insult Brennan tossed out, _h_e was the one who would have to spend two hours in the Hoover's penalty box sitting through a training seminar on "How to Maintain a Non-Hostile Working Environment." Brennan had seemed to reach the peak of her unprofessional and rabidly aggressive behavior when she went so far as to threaten several D.C. Metro officers. Booth finally had to step in when—after the four most obnoxious officers repeatedly told her she had a nice pair of tits and that she should them show off more often—she threatened to respond by either (1) filing multiple sexual harassment law suits or (2) kicking them all in the nuts. Thankfully, Booth managed to talk her down before she shot off any more flak that was going to, inevitably, rain down on _his _head.

In reality, Booth recalled with a grin, he hadn't really _wanted_ to talk her down, because he'd actually agreed with the D.C. Metro cops—the new alterations to the Jeffersonian field jumpsuit were quite effective in showing off what Booth considered to be one of Brennan's most attractive physical attributes—but, it wasn't like Booth could just tell Brennan that she had a great pair of tits and he wouldn't mind getting a chance to see more of them more often. _See, touch, rub, and generally be able to suck on_, Booth thought with a smirk. _I wonder what her cup size is_—_a really full C, at least, right? _He paused and considered what her chest looked like in profile. _Or, maybe, a small set of Ds? Hmmmmm. _He thought about all the times he'd stolen a glance down her blouse and wondered how much of that delicious, round cleavage was owed to her choice of bras and how much was Mother Nature's gift to, well, him. _I think that's a question that needs to be answered, and though it'd be tough, I think I'd like to volunteer for any scientific study that's gonna find the answer to that question. _

Then, suddenly, a louder voice popped up, one that sounded disturbingly like Sister Margaret Katherine from Booth's after-school CCD classes—a nun that had been older than dirt when his grandfather Hank had been a boy—chastising him in that nagging, slightly screechy voice of hers. _Seeley Joseph Booth, what type of disrespectful and impure thoughts are these? _He flexed his hand into a fist and winced as he felt his knuckles burn, the way they did every time he'd gotten his hands rapped by the Sister's ruler. He thought back to that one time the good Sister had caught him whispering in the back of the CCD class with Allison O'Malley, whose blue eyes and flaxen blonde hair had enthralled him even at the age of twelve. He'd been smitten with for weeks before he gave her the old Boothy grin and tried to talk her into taking a walk with him after class to the ballfield behind the church school. Sister Margaret Katherine had brought that ruler down on his hands with a fury, railing on him about how holding hands leads to one thing after another and before long he would end up with his soul in peril as he lusted after his female work partner. _Temperance is your partner! _the voice hissed at him. _How can you ever expect to keep things professional (strictly professional, remember, young man?) if you're constantly fantasizing about her physical measurements? For shame, Seeley, for shame!_

Flushing red, Booth realized that the second voice was right. _What are you thinking, Booth? This is madness. She's your partner. You can't think of her like that. It's just not right. So, get your mind out of the gutter, keep your eyes off her chest, and do the right thing_—_which isn't telling Bones she has a great pair of tits, by the way, just FYI. _Yes, they were partners, Booth finally, albeit reluctantly, agreed, the luscious image of her breasts still lingering in his mind. Sadly pushing the image away, he nodded to himself. After all, partners just didn't do _that_ sort of thing.

After he stepped in and broke up Brennan's skirmish with the D.C. Metro cops, it quickly became clear that in so doing he drew her fire, becoming himself the target of her fury. She then proceeded to rage against him as vociferously as she had against all of the other law enforcement officials she'd crossed paths with that day, tearing into him with a fierceness and a venom that he'd never heard come out of her mouth before. Eventually, after letting Brennan insult everything from his ability to do simple math to knowing how to spell his own name to verifying that, yes, he actually did know what a clitoris was, where it was found on the female anatomy, and what it was for, Booth had finally managed to get her calmed down and dropped her off at the Jeffersonian. _Okay, it was really more like I got to ride in my car with her while she drove us back to the lab, but still_, Booth thought, recalling how her final salvo, and his final surrender, was to hand her the keys to the Tahoe when she demanded them before they left the crime scene. Once Brennan had exited the SUV, she left the the keys in the ignition without even looking back to acknowledge Booth let alone say goodbye. No, Brennan had just left him sitting there by himself, and it was perhaps that casual dismissal that stung him the most. Eventually, gathering his wits about him as he walked around and climbed into the driver's seat, Booth had managed to make it back to the Hoover with enough energy and motivation to get a good workout in before calling it a night.

As Booth moved over to his preferred weight bench, he frowned when he looked around and saw the gym was empty. Knowing he wouldn't have anyone to spot him, he reluctantly settled for doing a few sets at a lower weight level even though it wasn't really what he wanted to do. _Then, again, Booth, come on. You should be used to this by now. Since when do you ever really get what you want? _As he laid down on the weight bench, he began to do bench presses, lifting a mere 160 pounds—considerably less than his usual 285 pounds because there is no one to spot him—as he tried to get into a good workout rhythm.

He tried to make the lifts count for something by doing them slower, trying to isolate the muscle groups by using yielding isometric movements, then doing a higher number of reps. Booth's pectorals, triceps, and deltoids twitched in response to his efforts, but the burn he felt was slight. In truth, he knew it was inadequate for the type of workout he knew he really needed, and instantly, his frustration mounted as he felt insufficiently challenged by the workout. He wanted desperately to be able to lift more weight, to feel a deeper, more intense burn, but because the gym was empty and there no one to spot him, Booth knew bench-pressing more weight under such circumstances would be unsafe and downright stupid. While he knew he could be foolish in certain emotional aspects of his life—particularly where his partner was concerned—he knew better than to do something idiotic like lift more weight than he should without the proper backup. So, Booth tried to content himself with what he _could_ do, even if wasn't really what he _wanted_ to do at that exact moment.

As Booth slowly lifted the barbell from his chest, and prepared to hold it a few inches above it with his arms bent halfway, he suddenly realized that the barbell had become much, much heavier than it should been—too heavy, really—and he felt his arms slipping as the bar sunk down closer to his chest. He struggled to lift the barbell away from his chest, and a wave of panic washed over him as he wondered if he had somehow managed to do something foolish without meaning to do so. _Wouldn't be the first time_, Booth thought. _And, probably won't be the last. But, what the fuck did I just do? I don't even understand it_—_what's happening, how I did it, or what the hell I should do next._

As his brain struggled to figure out how to fix the problem, Booth suddenly realized that someone was standing behind the bench as a shadow fell across his field of vision. The form leaned over the uprights and watched him with a mischievous grin on her familiar face.

"Well, well, well," she said. "This looks rather interesting. What's happening here?" Her eyes alight with amusement, Brennan tilted her head as she asked, "Need any help there, Booth?" Her familiar, husky voice then laughed a low, throaty laugh that almost would be considered a giggle had it come out of any other woman's mouth. She looked at him with a critical eye. "I would've expected that a man in your superior physical condition would have possessed the strength, stamina, and determination to manage a bit more weight than your current regimen seems to indicate you're capable of lifting, Booth."

"I just knew if I was going to have a problem tonight, it was going to involve you in some way, Bones," Booth told her in a gasping voice, his arms trembling as he struggled to keep the barbell from pressing into his heaving chest. "I thought you had shit to do at the lab..."

"I got bored," Brennan shrugged. "There was nothing there for me to play with, so I decided to see if I might be able to arrange a more enjoyable interlude here." She stopped, glanced around the gym, and then pointed at him. "Seeing as how you're the only one here with whom I might be able to initiate some type of informal encounter, Booth, it seems like you're the best option available at the moment, so I'm all yours—that is, if you want some help."

"Don't do me any fucking favors, Bones," Booth grunted.

"So, is that your way of telling me you don't need me?" Brennan asked, pouting a bit as she stuck out her puffy bottom lip. "That you want me to leave?"

"I didn't say that," he retorted. "Quit putting fucking words in my mouth. Stay if you want to stay. You always do as you goddamn well please, anyway," Booth told her.

She cocked her head and said, "And, if I want to stay, what would you want me to do, Booth?"

Booth narrowed his eyes at her before he grunted, "Fine. If you're gonna stay and help me, then stay and _help _me, Bones."

Shrugging, Brennan reached down to assist him as he requested. Booth felt immediate relief from the tearing sensation in his chest as she helped him bring the barbell over his head to rest on the uprights as he continued to wonder how the barbell had gotten as heavy as it had without him realizing it. _Seriously, what in the hell is going on here? _He then glanced at Brennan. _None of this makes any goddamn sense. _

Taking a deep breath, Booth nodded at her and addressed her earlier comment. "And, by the way," he said to her, "my strength and stamina are just fine, Bones, thanks." He rolled his right shoulder—the one that crapped out his freshman year and ended his college football career—in a backwards, circular motion to try and soothe the lingering burn brought on by the sudden increase in the weight his deltoids were forced to move.

"I'm not so sure about that, Booth," Brennan said doubtfully. She eyed him as he moved to sit up, but suddenly found himself unable to move as she walked around to the side of the bench. It was then that Booth noticed that she was still wearing the new Jeffersonian field jumpsuit she'd been wearing earlier at the crime scene. As compared to the old version of the field suit, it was still dark navy in color, still made of a shiny and smooth ballistic nylon material, and was still emblazoned with the usual white, red, and yellow Jeffersonian Medico-Legal Lab insignia patch. However, the cut of the jumpsuit was more form-fitting than the old one, clinging to every single curve of Brennan's body and accentuating the sway of her hips and swell of her ass in a very pleasing way. It reminded Booth of the skin-tight bodysuits that Diana Rigg used to wear in that 1960s British TV show _The Avengers. _The sleeves had been eliminated from this version of the jumpsuit, revealing the creaminess of Brennan's long arms. The bright silver zipper pull bounced against her chest, wiggling with each breath she took as her the smooth, almost satiny material strained to cover the fullness of her tits that Booth had so appreciatively recalled before her sudden appearance in the gym. Lastly, the standard gumboots had been replaced with a pair of three-inch black peep-toe stiletto heels that defined the term 'fuck-me pumps' as Booth found his mind racing with thoughts of how those heels would feel digging into the flesh of his lower back as he—

Brennan knew he was looking at her, and she said with a sensuous nod of her head, "I just don't know if I'm convinced, Booth," she said.

"Oh, really, Bones?" he said. "And, I suppose you have some ways that I might be able to 'convince' you, right?"

"Of your strength and stamina?" she asked as she reached for the zipper and very slowly began to pull it down her chest. Booth's eyes followed her hand, his throat going dry as he swallowed once, watching greedily as each inch of the zipper revealed more and more of her creamy skin and her enthralling breasts. Brennan held his gaze for a few seconds as she slowly pulled the zipper down the middle of her chest, and then, she suddenly sped up her movements as the zipper dipped between her breasts and approached her navel.

Booth's mouth opened to protest, but he didn't even have the chance to get a word out before she had quickly unfastened the jumpsuit completely and stepped out of it. Letting it fall into a crumple at her feet, she quickly stepped out of it, and lifting one of her long, lean legs over his muscular thighs, straddled him.

As Booth watched her, he suddenly realized that she was now clad in nothing but a very sheer pair of dark blue lace and mesh panties that were embroidered with a darker blue decorative thread. On her chest, a matching lace demi-cup bra—one that seemed to his eye to be at least one cup size too small—barely contained the soft flesh of the top of her breasts as they spilled over the edge of the fabric. _Damn, _he smiled to himself, _they look even better up close_. He couldn't help himself as he marveled at his closeness to the objects that had seemed to mesmerize him as if Brennan had hypnotized him with some sort of spell. Squirming a bit as he started to feel the first tell-tale signs of an erection, Booth wiggled on the bench before he suddenly realized that he had undergone a transformation of sorts himself at some point. No longer clad in his normal workout attire, he wondered how he had become barefoot and shirtless, clad only in a pair of red plaid jersey-knit boxer shorts. It as if some magic wand had been waved at him and granted a wish—although whose wish was being granted by such an arrangement, Booth couldn't quite say.

Brennan looked down at him, tightening her thighs as she pressed her legs against his in an appreciative movement as she asserted a pleasurable amount of friction against his lower body. The look she gave him sent a shiver down Booth's spine, as did her next words: "I think if you're going to convince me of the truth of your prior assertions, Booth, we're going to need to see some proof to substantiate them."

"Get off of me," he heard himself growl, not quite certain when the aggression now evident in his voice had appeared. "Get off of me," he grunted, "and I'll be happy to show you how good my strength and stamina are, Bones. I'll show you just how damn determined I can really be when I really need to be—"

"Is that so?" Brennan said, tilting her head as if considering his offer. "Really, Booth? Is that so?"

"Yeah, Bones," he growled again. "If you let me up, Bones, I think it'll take all of fifteen seconds before I have you pressed up against that wall over there, legs spread wide before I take you from behind and show you how fucking fantastic another 'informal encounter' between us can really be—"

Considering for a moment the image he painted, Brennan threw her head back with a hearty laugh. She then slowly shook her head as she looked down at him and said sternly, "No, I don't think so." She paused, then added, "As tempting as that particular scenario sounds, it'll have to wait for another time—especially since I know how skilled you can be when you're pounding into me from behind. But, that's not the protocol we'll be using for _this_ experiment, Booth."

Booth's anger flared as he shook his head at her description. "Experiment? Are we back to that again, Bones? Is that all this is, all I am to you? A goddamn science experiment?"

"You sound as if you're offended by that notion for some reason," Brennan remarked casually.

"You bet your sweet ass I am," he grunted. "We both know that I'm not a goddamn experiment. What we did, Bones, what happened between us, was more than that—much more. So, don't you dare try to fucking squintify it or to squintify me."

At this, Brennan laughed again, and her laughter infuriated Booth further. He struggled to sit up, summoning all of his rage and indignation as he tried to wrench himself free, but her grip around his torso was like a steel vice. He continued to struggle in futility.

Looking down at him, Brennan clucked her tongue at him. "Stop that, Booth. Stop that right now."

"No—"

"Yes," Brennan said, pressing her knees against him and emphasizing exactly who was in control at the current moment—and it _wasn't _Booth.

"Goddamn it, Bones. Let me up!"

"No," Brennan repeated. "Why should I, Booth? Give me one good reason why I should, and I will."

"Because I said so—"

"Not good enough," Brennan replied simply with a small shake of her head, cutting him off. "Try again."

"Fine, then how about this?" He held his jaw tight as he considered his words. "Because I'm not an experiment, and I deserve better than to be treated like one," he said to her, his voice catching in his throat as she shifted her weight, brushing her thigh gently against his growing erection.

"No, you're not. But, you need to take a moment and think about why you'd think that I would ever—"

"Why do you think you can boss me around like—?"

Brennan responded, a touch of reassurance in her voice as her lips pouted slightly when she sensed his frustrated annoyance quickly growing into anger. Taking her hand, she lifted a finger and placed it on his lips to cut off his tirade. "Now, stop that," she said quietly. Booth, perhaps more focused on her words than her gesture, stopped talking. She nodded and slowly lifted her finger from his lips.

When she did so, Booth spoke again, this time his tone not quite so hostile. "Stop what?"

"Stop taking things so personally," she chided him. "_You're _not the experiment, Booth. You never were. You never could be. And, deep down, I think you know that. You're just doing what you always do, and let yourself think the worst of things because you _always _take things _so _personally." Brennan stopped and then shook her head as she looked at him.

"And, by the way, that's why I was laughing earlier," she explained. " I wasn't laughing at _you_. I was laughing at how far off you are on things." She stopped and shook her head again. "How could you ever think that you're just an experiment to me, Booth? You know that you mean more to me than that." She pursed her lips as their eyes locked for a moment. "You always have, and you always will. You've just got to stop thinking the worst of me. If you stop it, and maybe, just _maybe _give me a little credit, I might surprise you—"

"I don't mean to think the worst of you," he admitted, "but I can't help it." He sighed. "I don't want—" Booth's voice trailed off, and he swallowed hard.

"What?" Brennan pressed.

"I know I'm already fighting a losing battle," he said, his voice dark and sad, "and I know that if I'm not careful, if I'm not careful about us, then the damage that could be done—"

"Stop that," Brennan chided him again. "Give me some credit, huh? You know I'm a genius, so give me some credit, and let me surprise you."

"I do," Booth told her. "And, you do—every damn day, Bones—but I worry..."

Shaking her head, Brennan said, "No. You have to stop trying to take the burden of it completely on yourself, Booth. No wonder you always take things so personally. This—_us_—if it's ever going to work, you've got to believe that I can do what I need to do for us. I may need a little help from you here and there, but in the end, you know there's nothing I wouldn't do for you. Give me a chance to show you I can do it. Have a little faith in me, Booth."

At _that _particular statement, Booth snorted.

Brennan shrugged with a grin, "Ironic statement, given who it's coming from, I know—"

"Just a bit," he admitted with a chuckle.

"Even still. You've got to do it. And, you've got to stop taking it personally, and enjoy it for what it can be, for what _we _can be, Booth. Because—" Brennan stopped, a deliciously evil gleam coming into her eye. "_You're _not the experiment here, Booth. _We're_ the experiment, and, as I seem to recall, you didn't have a problem with that before when it was so damn fun—"

Suddenly surprised to find that he was able to move his hands and arms, Booth lifted his right hand to wipe the sweat from his brow before he narrowed his eyes and he looked at her face again, intensely studying every lovely and deliciously familiar aspect of it. Her cheeks, slender neck, and creamy shoulders were deeply flushed and her pale green eyes seemed to him to have darkened to the color of the ocean surf as her pupils dilated with desire.

"Fine," Booth conceded. "So, _we're _the experiment?"

"Yes," Brennan admitted.

"So, what kind of experiment is this, then, Bones?" he asked, noticing how the timbre of his own voice had dropped half an octave from his usual speaking voice the more he continued to talk. "Are you trying to see if we can break the laws of physics?" He paused momentarily to gauge her reaction.

Lifting her eyes, Brennan playfully shook her head. "No, I believe that has been overdone, don't you think, Booth? As a matter a fact, I believe the idea of attempting to break unbreakable laws borders on the trite as far as we're concerned at this point in our relationship."

"Relationship?" he asked, arching an eyebrow at her. "What happened to 'informal encounter?'"

"Potato, potahto," she said. "Same damn difference, Booth."

"Right," Booth said. "So, about that idea of breaking unbreakable laws—"

"And, as I said, Booth, it's trite. You know what this is between us even if it's not spelled out in three-foot neon lights. So, why not go for something a bit more...interesting?" She eyed him for a minute and then said, "Besides, Booth, we both know that I can make science _very _fun and _very _exciting for you if I'm of a mind to do so." She glanced down at the erection straining against the flap of his boxers and said, "Of course, it seems like you might not need my help on the excitement part, at this point—"

"Maybe," Booth agreed with a sheepish grin. "But, still, it might be fun to try," he said with a confident waggle of his eyebrows.

Brennan chuckled at his response. She slowly shook her head as she reached up and pulled free the elastic that held her hair back in a rather homely and nondescript ponytail. Pulling it free, she tossed the elastic aside, and shook out her hair. Her auburn hair flared in a mass of shiny waves, almost transforming her face. Booth inhaled deeply as he caught a whiff of her shampoo—a type of fruity coconut and citrus concoction that made him want to bury his nose in the mass of her soft hair and inhale as if his life were dependent on it. As her hair fell about her shoulders, Brennan said, "This, Booth, is not an experiment in physics—it's an experiment in chemistry. Orgasmic chemistry, to be precise."

"Wait," he said, interrupting her with a chuckle. "Isn't that supposed to be 'organic' chemistry, Bones?"

She laughed at him again, and again, Booth felt his groin tighten at the sweet sound of her laugh. Leaning forward, Brennan whispered in his ear, "Not in this instance." Pushing her chest tightly against his naked, sweat-slicked chest, she gently pressed her lips to the skin just below his Adam's apple. He groaned at that moment, and spurred on by the sound her simple movement had elicited from him, she stood up without a further word and reached for the waistband of his boxer shorts. She tugged at them impatiently until he relented, giving in to help her just this once as he lifted his ass off the weight bench high enough to allow her to pull the shorts off his hips. Her movements grazed his cock in the process, which caused him to inhale sharply at the sudden sensation of it. Her evil grin widened as she slid the boxers down his thighs and over his knees before finally letting them fall to his ankles. With an awkward wiggle, Booth kicked them off his feet and carelessly to the side.

Booth was now completely nude, his cock hard and standing proud over the patch of crisp brown curls at its root. Brennan looked down, eyeing his arousal with a speculative look and then, almost as if she had decided to bestow her approval, she nodded and purred, "You have a magnificently-formed cock, Booth." He wasn't sure how to reply to that verbally, although the slight twitch of his cock in her direction seemed to say all he needed to in response to the compliment. He felt further absolved from having to respond verbally when Brennan straddled him again, this time grinding herself against him in such a way that he could feel how warm and slick she was through the crotch of her sheer, nearly translucent, dark blue satin panties. _Since when did Bones start coordinating her bra and panties to match the field jump suit? _Booth wondered in appreciation. _Does she do this often? _He stopped and then grinned. _Either way, I like it. That's hot. So fucking hot_—

Sufficiently encouraged, Booth grinned again but remained quiet. He decided to let his actions speak louder than anything his words could possibly say to Brennan. Lifting one of his hands, he reached up to slide one of the straps of her bra off her creamy white shoulder, his palm brushing across her erect nipple as it moved up her chest.

Brennan seemed tempted to let Booth have a bit of input into the flow of events between them. Her eyes closed, just for a second, and she started to moan as her back arched at the touch of his callused right palm on her nipple. Then, suddenly, as if her own moan had snapped her back to reality, her eyes shot open, and she shook her head quickly. "No," she snapped, pushing his hand away roughly. "This isn't your experiment, Booth." Glowering down at him, her lips pursed tightly, Brennan again shook her head in firm instance of her claim. "Do you understand that? Because we absolutely cannot afford any misunderstandings about this point. Not anymore. It's too important, right?"

Booth nodded slowly.

"So, you understand?" Brennan asked, punctuating her points with a twist of her hips as she repeated the crucial word. "_Mine_, Booth. All of it. It's _mine_. You understand? _Mine_. Everything. All of it. _Mine. _All _mine_."

Booth swallowed once and then nodded obediently, a part of him puzzled as he uncharacteristically agreed without so much as even a token protest. "Yeah," he agreed, his voice already growing hoarse.

"Not 'yeah'," Brennan corrected him lightly as she wagged her finger at him in disapproval. "'Yes.'"

"Fuck the grammar lesson, Bones," Booth groaned. She eyed him critically, insisting, and finally he relented with a grunted, "Yes_._"

"Yes, what?" Brennan prompted impatiently. "Come on, Booth. Just say what I want to hear, and it'll be worth it." Her eyes narrowed and twitched as she stared into his deep brown eyes. "I promise."

He met her stare and held it for another second and then grunted, "Yours." If the only thing he had been rewarded with was her smile at that single word, it probably would've been enough—more than enough. As it was, when Brennan rewarded him with a sharp twist of her body, Booth felt his whole body start to build with a wonderful and wondrous ache. "Oh, God," he hissed. "It's yours, Bones."

"What's mine?" she prompted again.

"Everything," he muttered. "Fuck, Bones. All of it. Everything. Whenever, wherever. All of it, all of me. I'm yo_urs. _Everything's yours. Always has been, always will be, right, Bones?. Everything—it's _yours_."

Pleased with his words, Brennan nodded and raised her body once more, tearing off the delicate sheer panties in a swift, hard movement that took Booth completely by surprise. Now clad only in her too-small brassiere, she reached beneath her and grabbed his thick, stiff cock, stroking it once in her hand, then once more before positioning it just so. He clenched his eyes shut as he felt the wonderful friction of her slender fingers encase his cock, and it was everything he could do to restrain himself from thrusting into her hand.

"Eyes up here, Booth," Brennan murmured. "I know you love looking at my tits, but right now, I really need your eyes up here." She emphasized her command with a slight grasp of her hand. Booth moaned, but complied as his eyes opened and brown eyes met greenish-blue. "Good," she said triumphantly. Deciding to reward him—and herself, too, if Booth had to guess—once again, she held his cock steady in her fist as she slowly lowered herself onto it, her hot, wet folds enveloping him as she took every inch of him into her, sucking in a loud, hissing breath as she felt his hard thickness take up every bit of space she had to give. "Oh, God, Booth—"

"Bones," he moaned. He felt her start to move up and down in a dominant way in which Booth knew he had never experienced with her. He reveled in how this particular sexual position seemed to empower Brennan in a way that he had never imagined and found more fucking sexy than he could have ever thought possible. Suddenly, needing to convey his approval and encouragement to her, Booth moaned, "Oh, yeah, Bones. Fuck. Keep moving. Oh, God, that feels good. Keep going, baby—"

"Oh, my God," Brennan groaned, not bothering to correct him about the use of such a infantile term applied to her person, an action that yet again reinforced the difference between Temperance Brennan of the real world and the dream-Brennan of this reality. No, this wasn't the real Brennan, a small voice dared to remind Booth, and one which was promptly told to shut the hell up in a vicious snarl from the other side of his mind. No, real-Brennan wouldn't have tolerated him calling her 'baby' for a split second while the dream-Brennan seemed all too happy to be rewarded with such an endearment used in reference to her.

"Oh, fuck, Booth…I'm so close."

She pressed herself down onto his rigid length once more, letting a gasp escape her lips as Booth felt her tighten around him in a wonderful sensation that was, in turn, driving him forward towards his own wonderfully welcome release.

"Booth," she whispered. "Oh, God—_Booo-thhh._"

And, suddenly, Brennan's velvety voice and warm folds suddenly disappeared as Booth's eyes snapped open. It took him several seconds to catch his breath and realize where he was. The post-game hockey show was blaring in the background, a replay of the game-winning goal apparently having been what jolted him awake, but all he could hear was the sound of blood roaring in his ears and his heavy, panting breath. He looked down and saw that he was completely hard and that somehow, apparently in his sleep, he'd pulled his cock out of his shorts where it now stood, erect and twitching in his hand.

Merely staring at it, blinking mindlessly as a part of his brain wondered where Brennan had gone and who he had to kill to get her back to the exact spot where she had been just a few seconds before, Booth had to stop another part of his mind from howling in anguish and frustration. He was close, so close, and now he wasn't. He was far, so far away, and it was driving him insane. He stopped. He couldn't take this anymore. He couldn't think. It was killing him.

Realizing he had little choice in the matter even if he didn't really, really want to do it anyway, a single thought echoed in Booth's mind—much as it had approximately twenty-four hours before as he had been standing in his shower: _Fuck it_.

Letting his head fall back again onto the couch's soft cushions, Booth allowed his eyes to flutter closed as he wrapped his fingers around his erect cock and began to stroke. He spread his legs and visualized Brennan lowering herself onto him, her eyes shut but her mouth open as a long, low groan escaped from her lips as she took him into her, her wet folds coming to rest at last in the nest of crisp curls at the base of his cock. Booth held himself in a tight fist, dragging the skin up and down over his shaft as he thought of the way she felt, so hot, wet and tight, and as he remembered the sounds she made the night before as he pumped in and out of her, he felt himself get even harder. He stroked his thumb across the tip and his middle finger along the sensitive spot just underneath the tip, and his hips jerked at the sensation. "God, Bones—" he moaned, echoing his earlier, pleading groans of pleasure.

He saw her raising and lowering herself onto him, her hands on his shoulders, and as his hand worked his flesh, he imagined putting each of his hands on her hips, his fingertips curling around to rest on the smooth curve at the base of her spine, pushing her down harder on each of her downstrokes. As if he could almost hear her breathless moans, he imagined hearing his name fall from her lips. "_Booth—_"

His hips jerked again as the sensations grew more and more intense, and Booth saw himself thrusting up to meet each of Brennan's downstrokes, burying himself as deeply as he could inside of her. He wanted to bury himself so deep in her that he would never find his way out again. Grunting savagely, he felt his release coiling tightly in his belly as his mind filled with the image of her full breasts, bouncing with each movement and barely contained in the sheer fabric of dark blue that did nothing to hide her dark color or pebbled texture of her erect nipples. As he jerked himself harder and faster, Booth saw himself reach up and unhook her bra as the fabric fell away from her magnificent tits. He cupped them, one in each hand and felt the hard points of her nipples press against his palms. "Oh, God, Bones. _Fuck_—"

He squeezed his eyes tightly shut, clenched his teeth and grunted as his hips jerked forward one last time as he came, ropey strands of cum splattering on his belly as he called out her name one last time before he leaned back against the couch, spent and satiated.

Several more minutes passed before Booth felt some rationality return to his mind. Cracking open an eye, he looked down at the mess he had made of himself. He stood up, holding his hand against his sticky belly as he headed towards his bathroom to take his second shower of the evening. _Fuck, Booth! _he chastised himself. _What am I doing? _the voice in the back of his head asked.

_God, what's she done to me? It hasn't even been twenty-four hours yet, and look what she's done to me. _

He paused and glanced at the clock, a look of disgust on his face as he shook his head slowly.

_This is madness._

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><p><em>Oh, dear. That was naughty, very naughty.<br>And you enjoyed every minute of reading it._

_Would you believe there's more fun yet to come?_

_(Of course there is!)_

_If we see those reviews pouring in, we'll be caught up in the enthusiasm  
>and that means will surely post more of these chapters more quickly.<em>

_More reviews = happier writers = more updates._

_You know what to do._


	5. Chapter 5: Counter Attitudinal Behavior

**Cognitive Dissonance  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128  
><strong>Rated: <strong>M**  
>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

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><p><strong><em><span>AN: _**Before we continue, I'd like to pass along a message from my co-author, Lesera128:

_Beeeeeeep...and, now, we interrupt this fan fic chapter posting on dharmamonkey's account to bring you a small note from Lesera128. Hi all_—_remember me, erstwhile partner-in-crime of dharmamonkey? I wanted to take a chance to toss out this Jack Handy moment. This story is rapidly getting to the point_—_okay, so who are we kidding? It overshot that highway exit a really long time ago, but still it's worth mentioning_—_we've worked to extrapolate characterizations of Booth and Brennan from events that happened at the end of season 3, as we shared in "Costly Signals." People should keep this in mind as they read, and judge the AU characterizations from that point forward...and not compare them to other versions of B&B seen elsewhere, both on and off-screen, because, frankly, they're not quite the same people. A wise man once said that the totality of the human condition is the accumulation of experiences that have shaped a person to that point in their life. So, we've taken away a few experiences, added a few new ones, and the sum is our version of the B&B that stands before you. If you're interested, we're glad to have you stick around. If not, that's cool, too. Happy fic hunting. This now concludes our test of the Lesera128 Emergency Messaging System. Remember, this was only a test. Beeeeeeep.  
><em>

Okay, so where were we? _  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 5 - Counter-Attitudinal Behavior<br>**

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><p>Even though she had only slept for approximately four hours the previous night, by the time Booth dropped off Brennan at her apartment, she didn't really feel tired or ready to go to sleep quite yet. As soon as she turned her back on the SUV—and Booth—Brennan almost wished that he would call out and stop her, give her a reason to linger. But, even slowing her pace from its normal strong, confident and deliberate strides, by the time she reached the door to her building and had her hand on the door's handle, Booth still hadn't called out. Reluctantly, she sighed as she realized that he wasn't going to give her a reason to not go inside and up to her apartment. A bit disappointed, she entered the building, her final words to Booth echoing in her head.<p>

_"It was an enjoyable interlude—very enjoyable. I had…I had fun. Goodnight, Booth," _

Enjoyable. Fun. Goodnight.

_Damn, could I have been any more impersonal? It sounds like I was thanking a benefactor after one of the Jeffersonian's formal receptions or benefit galas_, Brennan thought with a grimace, her mouth hardened and twisted upwards as her facial expression unintentionally contorted in response to her emotional displeasure. A faint buzz of unsettled energy began to build, and she shook her head at the unpleasant thoughts and the responses they had evoked in her.

As she found herself in the lobby of her building, Brennan stopped for a moment, and realized that she hadn't come in the normal way in which she would enter after a long day at work. Usually, she would ride the elevator upstairs all the way to her floor from the underground parking garage. However, Brennan realized that her car was still at the lab, as she had never retrieved it after she left it at the Jeffersonian when the the previous night's escapade had begun when she shared a cab ride with Angela to Gleam. Sighing as she thought of how she would have to take a cab back to the lab in the morning, Brennan spared the elevator only a quick glance before she shook her head and headed for the stairs. Pulling open the door to the stairwell with a rough jerk, Brennan began to trudge up the stairs to her apartment, not even bothering with the elevator. For some reason, she felt like exerting a bit of physical effort, as the restless energy she had noticed as she entered the building didn't seem to be subsiding. No—in fact, the buzz that had settled over her since she said goodnight to Booth seemed to actually be _increasing_, and that worried her as she wondered exactly _how _much intense physical activity it would take to cure it.

When she reached her apartment, it only took Brennan a few seconds to shift her bag, grab her keys, and unlock her front door. Once she entered, she walked through her foyer and towards the kitchen. She stopped mid-way, pausing briefly to hastily drop her keys and messenger bag on the dining room table, before she continued walking back to the kitchen to grab a bottle of water. She didn't bother to turn on the overhead light as she approached her refrigerator. The sleek metal handle of the stainless steel appliance felt cool to the touch as Brennan grabbed it, yanking open the door and letting the refrigerator's internal light illuminate the darkened kitchen.

Brennan paused as her eyes surveyed the contents, and suddenly, she thought of how hungry she actually was, although it took her a minute to figure out _why _her stomach was now growling as her eyes darted from shelf to shelf. Then the reason became clear, and she frowned when she realized that Booth had _not _suggested their customary detour to the Royal Diner or the Founding Fathers for a quick bite before they went their separate ways. When they had returned from Fairfax, Booth had taken her straight to her apartment, without even suggesting they grab dinner—a highly suspicious move that significantly deviated from their normal pattern of behavior, at least to Brennan's way of thinking. He had, it seemed, waited only long enough for her to get out of the SUV before he was on his merry way. The notion that Booth wanted to get rid of her annoyed Brennan, increasingly so the longer she contemplated the possible significance of his actions. She sighed again because of that feeling of annoyance that had now settled over her, and she let that frustration simmer a bit since she had never willingly tolerated such a causal dismissal of her person by anyone else so easily.

Trying to figure out which of her refrigerator's contents was most appealing to her, Brennan decided that although she knew she needed to eat something, there wasn't really anything that seemed appetizing to her anymore. Having no inclination to cook, and little patience to order take out, she leaned into the refrigerator, shifted a half-gallon of two-percent milk out of the way, rearranged a few mini-bottles of lemon Perrier, and pulled out a tall white plastic bottle from near the back of the shelf. Knowing her choices were limited as far as flavors went, she resigned herself to having to consume the pre-made blueberry fruit smoothie beverage she kept on hand for such purposes when she needed to eat, but didn't want to, even though she would've really preferred one of the strawberry flavored ones. Sighing again, as she knew it was just turning out to be one of _those _days, Brennan shook the bottle mindlessly in the air.

As her hand pumped the bottle back and forth, mixing any of the settled proteins that might've gathered at the bottom back into a well-mixed suspension, she couldn't help herself as she glanced at the way her fingers had curved around the plastic. For just a split second, the image of the bottle was replaced with something else—something that was still firm, but warm and soft and alive. Brennan's eyes closed for a minute, her already-rapid heartbeat quickening as she flushed and imagined she could hear his moan of half-pleading and half-pleasure to please keep doing what she was doing as she increased the friction of her grasp and shook the bottle harder, moving it up and down in a measured stroke—

_Stop it_, a sharp voice suddenly chided her. _Right now. Stop it. Such thoughts serve no useful purpose. They're distractions that are a waste of time, energy, and resources. So, just stop it, Brennan_.

Shaking her head, grabbed the bottle with her opposite hand and quickly twisted the cap open, figuring the content's should be more than adequately mixed by that point given her excessive and irrational efforts of just a few seconds prior to cool logic welcomingly reasserting itself. Setting the bottle cap down on the counter, Brennan lifted the smoothie to her lips and quickly downed it in several large gulps. Wiping her mouth with the back of her hand, Brennan quickly rinsed out the bottle before she set it in the sink to dry so that it could be recycled later.

Her goal of eating dinner now accomplished, Brennan turned around and walked back into her bedroom. This time she did turn on the lamp that sat on her bureau, and the sight that greeted her eyes was expected, but still displeasing, nonetheless. Sighing, she glanced around her bedroom, and saw that it was still a mess from her earlier efforts to dress with all possible speed to make it to the lab earlier that afternoon. Brennan's eyes only stopped when she spotted her clothing from the evening before where she had hastily discarded it on the floor after she had kicked it away while getting dressed after her late-morning return from Booth's apartment.

Brennan's normal fastidiousness asserting itself, she grunted as she bent down and grabbed the offensive articles in one fell swoop. Marching to her closet, she pulled open the door and began to toss the bra, panties, and jeans into the hamper. She hesitated just as she was about to chuck the wrinkled black halter top into the hamper. For some random, inexplicable reason, she lifted the dirty garment to her nose and sniffed, uncertain what she expected to find besides the pungent odor of her own sweat mixed with her deodorant, spilled tequila, and…then, there it was. Faint, very faint, but it was definitely present—_sandalwood_. She felt her heart begin to race again as her nostrils flared at the smell of him permeating her senses.

_Damn it. Damn it. Damn it! _Brennan thought. _Useless. Pointless. And, stupid. It's stupid to allow him to elicit such a reaction from me when it's clear he seems to be rather casual about what happened. _

Again, as Brennan replayed their last conversation in her head, she heard Booth's words quite clearly in her mind: _"So, when I said you couldn't satisfy me…I was wrong. Earlier? You know, when it was—just us? It was amazing—you were amazing. It was really, really good, and you were good. No, you were great. It was, all of it, it was really, really good."_

Biting her lip for a minute, Brennan carefully reflected on the words. _Amazing. Good. Great. Satisfied,_ she thought slowly. _Booth admitted that, from his perspective, he had an enjoyable and satisfying sexual experience with me. And, that's as it should be. Remember, Brennan, there's no need to complicate things more than they actually are. It happened. You both enjoyed it. In your own words, it was fun. In his words, it was really good. And so, what, exactly is wrong with that?_

"Nothing," she said to herself, taking a breath. "Nothing," she repeated before Brennan paused for a second and then decided to add softly, "But—"

Looking down at the halter top that she still held in her hand, Brennan suddenly shook her head in disgust. "There's nothing wrong with what happened to get us to that informal encounter, but I find myself greatly annoyed by the events that resulted in that outcome." Shaking her head as she thought of the verbal taunts and insults she and Booth had exchanged—even though she had already apologized for such unbecoming and unclassy behavior—she still winced as she thought of how she had acted in public and realized she was embarrassed by the absurdity and illogical nature of many of her own actions.

Shaking her head in disgust, Brennan bunched the top into a wad of cloth and pitched it in the hamper with the rest of her clothes. _No more_, she thought. _It was a momentary lapse in judgment. It won't happen again. _

Nodding to herself, pleased with her resolution, Brennan quickly stripped herself of her work attire, and pulled on a simple charcoal-color cotton chemise. As she pulled the chemise down over her head, she couldn't help herself as she yawned. Realizing how tired she had suddenly become, Brennan glanced at the clock. Although it was still early, it seemed as if the events of the past twenty-four hours had finally caught up to her, and in that minute, she knew she was ready to go to sleep. Sitting on her bed, she plugged in her cell phone to charge, set her alarm clock, and crawled under the covers determined to end the day and start fresh in the morning.

Friday morning dawned the next day, and Brennan awoke, refreshed and almost totally rejuvenated in a way she had never expected seven hours of sleep to achieve. Humming to herself as she showered and dressed, she even felt indulgent enough to stop by Starbucks to grab a latte on her way to the Jeffersonian. Despite her detour, she still arrived precisely at 7:15am, and she had already been working on Melissa Lauda's remains for almost an hour and a half before the rest of the lab even started to buzz with activity. The day passed quickly, and Brennan didn't even really notice until her stomach growled around 2:30pm that she had been working for more than seven hours straight.

Quickly ducking out to grab something from the diner that she could bring back to her office to eat as she worked through emails, Brennan saw a single text message from Booth with a timestamp of 10:17am waiting for her when she finally checked her cell phone. _Interview with Hastings on hold. Techs called dept & found out he's on leave for semester to do research in London. _She frowned when she saw there wasn't anything else to the rather brief message—no other details or an indication as to what their next step was in the course of proceeding with the investigation.

Wondering if perhaps Booth had conveyed such information in another way, because Brennan knew text messaging wasn't necessarily the most convenient way to convey information with a lot of details, she checked her email. Her frown deepened as she scrolled through her inbox, and didn't seen the sender name for which she was looking. Stopping, she made a face as she realized that she couldn't find any other information from Booth because he hadn't sent anything. There were no follow up text messages, no voicemails, no emails—nothing. Sighing as she shook her head, Brennan logically decided that she wouldn't waste time wondering why Booth hadn't contacted her, since he had apparently and rationally made the decision to proceed with the case in a way that didn't require her direct participation for the moment. Thus, she didn't spare it another thought as she resumed her work and went about her business.

By the time she left that Friday evening around 8:30pm, she was even more exhausted than she had been on the prior day. Deciding that yesterday's efforts had produced a positive result, Brennan repeated much the same ritual as the day before: she downed a blueberry fruit smoothie before changing and collapsing into bed.

However, when Brennan woke up for the first time on Saturday morning—she was somewhat surprised when, seeing the alarm clock's digital readout blink back at her, she saw it was only 3:36am—she started to realize that Saturday wasn't going to be the same type of positive and productive day that Friday had been. She tossed and turned, trying to find a comfortable position among the various pillows of her queen-sized bed, the 600-thread count Egyptian cotton sheets in a sage green damask pattern silkily stroking her legs with each movement. Eventually, she forced herself to stop moving, and she employed several meditation techniques to calm herself. Feeling some of the tension ease out of her stressed body, she found herself in that half-awake, half-asleep phase of liminal spaces when she started to dream.

However, Brennan knew it was a dream even as the images played back in her mind, and she didn't bother to curse herself as she realized where she was and who she was with as a familiar voice purred in her ear: "_Oh, that's okay, as I have every intention of making you scream again before I'm through with you, Bones. And, that's a promise."_

She arched her back as she felt his lips on her warm skin, his hands caressing the delicate skin of her breasts, eliciting a small whimper from her lips.

"_Booth—"_

_No_, a second and louder voice chimed in as it rebuked her. _Wake up, Brennan. It's just a dream. Wake up._

And, with a reluctant groan, Brennan slowly complied, forcing herself to wake up. Sitting straight up in bed, her breathing ragged, sweat beading on her forehead, she groaned in frustration as she realized what had been happening to her, and more importantly, what it had meant. _Oh, no_, she thought. _No. Fuck, no_...

That tingle—the ripple of restless energy that Brennan had felt coursing through every nerve of her body since she had left Booth in the SUV two days before—had been thoroughly compartmentalized along with everything else about the night she had spent with him that in any way didn't fit into their normal routine pattern of behavior of 'just partners.' However, apparently, that effort of compartmentalization only held when her conscious mind was in control of her mental processes. During her slumber, it appeared, when her unconscious mind held sway, the compartmentalization vanished like a drop of dew on a blade of grass evaporating in the first harsh rays of the morning's sunlight. Now aware of such competing mental decrees, Brennan knew that the restless energy had been transformed into something intimately more familiar and more...exciting.

Her chest heaving as she struggled to regain her bearings and control over her body's responses, in her waking state, the evidence of her building physical need to achieve some sort of release from her sexual desire reasserted itself with a horrible vengeance. _No, no, no_, Brennan thought to herself as she felt the strong pulse of her arousal begging to be assuaged. _No, this is not happening. I decided. I made my decision two days ago. It's done. It's over. It's finished. And, I'm not, I repeat, I'm not going down __this road again._

Rolling over in bed, Brennan simultaneously clenched her eyes and legs shut. _No_, she thought. _I'm not giving in_..._not on this. Not now. Not to him, not again. Damn it. I made my choice and that's it. This is not happening. I won't give in. Not now, not again!_

Her prior decision reaffirmed, Brennan rolled over and stared at a spot on the wall. She debated between languishing in bed and just getting up and starting her day. She had been down this path enough times in the three years since she'd met Seeley Booth to know what came next, and that even if by some miracle sleep did arrive to claim her once again, it would probably be better to just stay awake the entire time anyway—although, eventually she did nod off again. A couple of hours later, the second time Brennan woke up, she gave a sigh of thanks that her arousal had lessened, but also realized how restless and unsatisfying the later part of the night had been, as compared to her earlier slumber. _Enough_, she grumbled to herself. _That's enough, Brennan. This stops now_.

Only, some things are easier said than done, Brennan would soon come to painfully realize.

On Tuesday evening, Brennan repeated much the same pattern as she had each night during most of the past week. She worked late, came home, drank a pre-made fruit smoothie, having procured the strawberry flavor at Fresh Market on Sunday afternoon—though, just to vary her pattern slightly, on a couple of nights she'd treated herself to a nondairy cherry and orange shake from Planet Smoothie on the way home from work—changed out of her work clothes, and crawled into bed. Each night before she left the lab, she worked herself a bit harder so that the exhaustion would claim her with the hope that she would _stay _asleep for the whole night when she finally went to bed. Her rational and logical did achieve partial success, for each time she went to sleep, for a few hours at least, it worked perfectly. However, despite the fact that she was going to sleep by about the time the eleven o'clock news came on, like clockwork, she still found herself still waking up between 3am and 4am After the second night established a pattern, she refined it by tossing and turning for an hour or so after the first dream jerked her awake. Eventually, using a combination of deep breathing and meditation techniques, she would relax enough to fall back to sleep. But, each time she fell asleep—despite her imperious and emphatic demand of her subconscious not to do otherwise—she found herself dreaming about Booth in an even more erotic and intense way that the first faint dreams had represented_, _and those had been quite effective in simultaneously arousing and disconcerting Brennan.

However, to be fair, Brennan knew that most of the disconcerting feelings and reactions that she was having, she had brought on herself by her post-dream actions—or, lack of actions, as more accurately described the situation. Most of the time, the dreams were more Brennan reliving memories of the previous Wednesday night's encounter, but still, each time, she jolted herself awake just before she knew she would achieve some type of sexual release. And, in retaliation against her unconscious for violating the sacred and profane proclamation of her conscious mind's dictum, Brennan refused to finish the process that had started in her dream in order to achieve any type of meaningful release.

By the time Tuesday night was transitioning into Wednesday morning, the insane pattern had continued—but with a significant deviation when she fell asleep for the second time that evening. Even though Brennan knew she had fallen asleep, and had reached the point in her nightly schedule where she expected to do battle with her ever-increasing frustration—both with Booth and her excessive libido—this particular occasion wasn't the same as it had been on several of the past nights. Instead, although Booth was still present in the dream, _this _time she knew she was dreaming a real dream, not just a hybrid memory-dream of her single night/morning of sexual romping in his bed.

The first thing Brennan became consciously aware of was that fact that Booth was standing in front of her. He looked as she'd seen him countless times before, dressed in a dark charcoal gray, faintly-pinstriped three-piece suit, a burgundy tie subdued in its plainness and wholly lacking a design, and white starched dress shirt with French cuffs. Yes, Booth looked much as he always did on days when they were due in court—except for the three-button vest and the French cuffs, which Brennan had only seen him in when he was wearing a tuxedo—right down to the yellow legal pad he tended to carry around with him during their more difficult court cases. It was a habit that he had picked up from Caroline Julian, and what annoyed Brennan the most about it was that Booth rarely took notes or wrote things down on the legal pad. Sure, he would occasionally jot a question down or write down some comment to pass to Brennan if they couldn't speak freely while court was in session. Sometimes, when Caroline wasn't looking, and when Booth knew he could get away with it, he doodled. He had only asked her to play a game of Hangman with him once before her scowl conveyed her opinion of the inappropriateness of such a use of the pad while in the midst of a legal proceeding. But, mostly, it seemed that Booth just liked to carry it around in his hands so that he had something to hold onto—to occupy what he called his "itchy" fingers—perhaps taking the place of the St. Antony religious medallion that he always kept in his pocket and people often mistook for a lucky poker chip.

This time, however, as Booth held the legal pad in front of him, Brennan could see it was covered in his illegible handwriting, and he was apparently glancing at it as if to refresh his memory about something he was about to say. The movement fascinated Brennan, and she was about to open her mouth to speak when other matters began to demand her attention—her _immediate _attention as she suddenly, and somewhat uncharacteristically, shivered as a draft from the A/C vent washed over her.

Focused as she was on Booth, it took Brennan a minute to realize other very important details about her current surroundings. She was sitting in a familiar space—the witness box in one of the larger courtrooms in the federal courthouse in downtown D.C., the same place where she had often given testimony as an expert witness over the years of her tenure at the Jeffersonian. Tickling her nose in a not all too unpleasant way, the pungent smell of lemon furniture polish clung heavily to the air, no doubt due to the excessive amount of old wood furniture and dark paneling that adorned the room.

Glancing at a window that stood diagonal from where she sat in the witness box, Brennan could see that the amount of sunlight shining through the large casement windows indicated it was probably some time during the middle of the day. Despite this fact, she found it odd that, aside from where she sat in the witness box, and where Booth stood in front of the prosecution's table where Caroline normally resided, the entire courtroom was empty.

Each single fact taken separately wasn't enough to make her feel uncomfortable. But, the shiver she had felt because of the A/C, combined with all of these salient points added together, brought Brennan to the realization that something was very, _very_ odd about the whole situation. As she sat in the uncomfortable witness box, the hard angles of the mahogany wood cutting into her back and thighs, she glanced down at her lap and finally saw the reason why she felt the discomfort more than normal. Simply put, she looked as she might on any given day when she was due in court to give testimony—hair pulled back in a severe French chignon, understated ingénue makeup of pale face powder and a light pink lip gloss adorning her face, even down to her favorite silver watch that she wore on her right wrist.

Yes, she was dressed in quite the normal way but for one minute detail: she wasn't actually wearing any clothing. Brennan sat in the witness box, apparently about to give expert testimony in a case, without a single stitch of clothing covering any aspect of her totally and completely naked body.

Of course, it was at that particular moment of realization, almost the exact same second that the fact registered in her mind, that the typically inconvenient occurred courtesy of Special Agent Seeley J. Booth. Glancing up from where he stood scanning the yellow legal pad, Booth stood up a bit straighter as he finally chose to acknowledge Brennan's presence. Walking back from the prosecution's table to stand in front of the witness box, he began to speak in a very clear and booming voice that echoed in the empty courtroom.

"So, Dr. Brennan," Booth began formally. "Can you please answer the question?"

Her brow furrowing in offended confusion, Brennan said, "Booth? What question? No—"

Smiling indulgently at her, Booth spoke in that charming tone of voice she'd heard him employ so many times before over the years, in both court and during the process of interviewing witnesses, as he said, "Now, Dr. Brennan, I remind you that you're still under oath."

"No, I'm not," she instantly responded. "I don't recall being sworn in—"

"Oh, it happened," Booth said emphatically, his lips curled in a twisted grin. "You can take my word on that. Trust me."

"No!" Brennan replied.

Suddenly, his grin fled and a hurt look came across Booth's face as he softened his eyes. He tilted his head as he looked at her and, the formality suddenly fading from his voice, Booth said, "Awww, Bones. Really? You don't trust me? After all that's happened between us? I thought, at the very least, as partners, you trusted me? But, if you don't…that hurts. That _really _hurts."

Brennan sighed, suddenly feeling a little guilty. "Of course I trust you, Booth. But—"

His head snapped up at her words, again the professional edge coming back into his bearing and tone, and Brennan knew as soon as he spoke that she was being manipulated. _He played me. Again_. _I just got played. By Booth. _ _Just like he always does_. _Goddamn it!_

Booth narrowed his eyes and leveled a firm stare at her. "Then, if you trust me enough to believe that you've been sworn in and are still under oath, why won't you give the court your answer to my question, Dr. Brennan?" Booth asked.

Pursing her lips together in annoyance, Brennan finally relented with a heavy sigh. "Can you please repeat the question?"

"Certainly," Booth said in an amiable tone. "I asked you, Dr. Brennan, why have you spent the past week in a constant state of denial over the significance of the sexual encounter you had on last Wednesday evening?"

Brennan's back stiffened as Booth had hit an apparent sore spot with her. Quickly—a bit too quickly—she said in a sharp tone, "I'm not in denial."

"We can use the term 'repression' if you prefer that terminology," he said.

"You may use whatever term you wish, Booth. 'Denial' or 'repression'—it doesn't matter because both terms insinuate the same implication, and it's that implication that I contest," Brennan said.

Nodding at her, a smug and knowing look coming into his eyes, Booth said, "You can contest it all you want, but you're still doing the action, Dr Brennan."

"No, I'm not—"

Booth eyed her as he said slyly, "Yes, Dr. Brennan—yes, you are."

"No, I'm not," she countered. "Moreover, putting aside the fact that I'm sitting here naked and there's no judge or jury, you have no right to question me like this just because, for some insane reason, you've decided to impersonate a federal prosecutor—"

Again, Booth's demeanor shifted to one of casual amusement. "Well, Bones," he said with a soft laugh, "do you really want Caroline to see you like this?"

"Like what?" she asked, the confusion clear in her response.

Booth chuckled as he pointed at her and said, "You said it yourself, Bones. You're not wearing any clothing." His dark brown eyes flickered, darting quickly up and down what he could see of Brennan from the waist up, as the corner of his lips curled into a sly smile. "You're _naked_."

"Yes, Booth, I think we've established that fact already, but thank you for repeating the obvious," she replied tartly.

"It bears repeating, Bones," Booth said with a shrug. He then winked at her as he said, "You're naked—and, very, _very _fucking sexy, by the way."

Blushing a bit at his ribald compliment, Brennan did her best not to give it too much import as she merely accepted the praise for what it was. "Thank you," she said plainly. "And, to answer your most recent question, I don't particularly care. You've said it yourself on more than one occasion—I have a very aesthetically pleasing physical appearance. I have no inhibitions about my body, or about sex—just for the record, Booth."

He again ran his eyes up and down her torso, hungrily devouring what he could see above the paneling of the witness box. Brennan sat back in her chair, inclined her head at Booth, and waited for an answer. His intense gaze continued to survey her, never looking away as he considered her body with an appreciative eye that bordered on a leer. Finally, he replied quietly, "No, you don't, do you?"

"I think it's accurate to say that you can personally attest to the veracity of my statement on that matter, Booth," Brennan tossed back at him, starting to enjoy their banter, even if she was completely naked, and he was the one that was completely clothed as she thought back to their informal sexual encounter with relish. "Isn't that right?" she added, tilting her head at him.

Booth looked at her for a moment, and then, reluctantly, with a slight jerk of his head and a conciliatory smile, conceded her point. "While the court would remind the witness that she isn't the one asking the questions here, and that I am, the answer is yes. I would agree with your point."

Brennan smirked in satisfaction.

"However," Booth interrupted her gloating with a small grin of his own, "while the prosecution does concede the point that there might be some indication that you're comfortable with both your physical body and the sexual act, based on those assumptions, then one could extrapolate that the actual source of your current denial of the encounter in question stems from some other source of embarrassment. Would you say that's an accurate supposition, Dr. Brennan?"

"Aside from the fact that if there were a defense attorney here, they would immediately object to you leading the witness, I already told you, Booth," Brennan glared. "I'm not embarrassed by my body or the notion of having sex, so I'm not certain what other source of embarrassment to which you might be referring—"

"Yes, yes—you did say that," he continued, as he began to pace in front of the witness box, almost as if he were grandstanding to the non-existent jury. "So, if you're not embarrassed by either your body or sex, then it must be another aspect of the encounter on Wednesday evening last that's causing the problem here." Booth spun on his heel and came to a stop on his last word, as he looked at her straight in the eyes, his formal demeanor shifting just a bit. "If it's not you, it's not what you did, then it's gotta be who you did it with, right, Bones? So the real question here is why does the idea of having sex with me make you so uncomfortable?"

Brennan frowned again, shaking her head as she replied, "I'm not embarrassed by you, or anything I've ever done with you, Booth."

"Then, bringing us back to the original question I posed to you several minutes ago, Dr. Brennan, why are you in denial about the entire situation—which, I believe, quite interestingly, you've mentally informally labelled as 'an informal encounter'—then? Why have you spent the entire week trying to pretend it didn't occur and that it didn't mean anything?"

Booth put his hand on his hip and cocked his head to the side, looking at her in curiosity. "What exactly was so bad about it that you wish it hadn't ever happened?" he pressed her, his posture suddenly tense and ready, like that of a hunter who had finally sighted his prey and had moved in for the kill. "What was so wrong with it being us and doing what we did?"

Anger surged inside her and her nostrils flared as Brennan stood up in the witness box, the rapidity of her motions sending her body forward in a fast motion. Booth watched her, his glance not focused on the indignation that raged in her eyes, but lower, much lower. He stood transfixed as he saw her breasts bounce forward unrestrained as a consequence of her movements. Brennan watched his gaze and immediately felt her initial spike of anger grow twice as strong.

"Eyes up _here_, Booth," she hissed, nodding her head quickly in emphasis of her point. "Up," she snapped. His glance hesitated a few more seconds, causing Brennan to repeat herself and snap her fingers. "_Up. _Eyes up here. Now. Right now, Booth."

His eyes darting back to hers at hearing her words, Brennan felt slightly pacified. Leaning forward, she continued, "You're always telling me to stop putting words in your mouth." She returned his gaze, her eyes surveying his well-structured and perfectly-tailored form in a form of _quid pro quo_ of Booth's earlier movements. She noticed how his prominent Adam's apple had begun to bob repeatedly as he swallowed quickly a couple of times. Brennan chuckled silently as she recognized the tell for what it was. She had caught him. Somehow, someway, she had caught Booth off guard. Deciding it was of paramount importance to press her advantage, she said, "Well, you need to stop putting words in mine. I _never _said that I wished it had never happened."

"Then, why waste all this time and energy denying it, Bones?" Booth retorted, his prosecutorial manner of speech falling away once more as his voice seemed to reacquire the brightness she was accustomed to hearing from him. "You gotta admit it doesn't make much sense."

"I don't consider anything I've ever done with you to be a waste, Booth. But—"

He cut her off as he pointed and said, "You're contradicting yourself, Bones."

"No, I'm not—"

"Yes, you are. And, that must mean that, if you're not in denial, then you're doing this on purpose because something's got you scared. Those are the only two possible explanations, right, Bones?" Booth stepped back and looked at her with a vague smile on his lips. "So, which is it—what's the fuel that's driving that beautiful brain of yours—the denial or the fear?" he asked.

Annoyed at how true his words rang, despite her best efforts to bury such facts, so as never to have to ever deal with them again, Brennan snapped. "For the last time, I'm not in fucking denial!" she said, her voice nearly a shout.

Just as suddenly as his voice had waxed casual, so did that casualness wane again in favor of a formality nearly as crisp as the suit he wore. "So, Dr. Brennan, are you denying that you're in denial?" he quipped. "I might have to ask myself for a ruling on that one, because that statement certainly sounded like a denial to me."

"Ask yourself for a ruling?" Brennan responded with an arched eyebrow, her growing annoyance clearly present in her voice. "Why would you do that?"

"Because, Bones," Booth said, his tone of voice the one a parent would use when explaining something to a child, as if she was Parker and had asked why it was daytime if the sun was shining. "Did you forget? I'm the expert here. I know everything about _everything_."

"And, even though you're questioning me, you want to ask yourself for a judgment as to what type of behavior I'm displaying right now even though you're the one doing the questioning?" Brennan summarized the situation as she understood it, even if it was in the form of a question. "That's hardly appropriate or a useful exercise, Booth."

"Why's that, Bones?" Booth asked.

"Because," she insisted. "It's hardly an accurate statement that you know 'everything about everything'—"

"Maybe not," he conceded. "But, I _do _know everything there is to know about you, Bones." He paused, and then, almost as if he was quite pleased with himself at the notion, he added with a grin, "One might call me an expert on the subject."

Shaking her head, Brennan muttered. "You don't know nearly as much about me as you'd like to think you do, Booth."

"And, you, Dr. Brennan, have never accepted the fact that I might just know more about you than you want to give me credit for," Booth countered. "Now, returning to the topic at hand, specifically, issue of whether the fact that you were embarrassed by the fact that you had sex with me—engaging in _three_, possibly four, separate sex acts with me—and we will assume from the standpoint of semantics that each of these individual sex acts together constitute a single instance of 'having sex'—"

Brennan recoiled somewhat at hearing Booth, who waxed poetically one night—the night after they closed that bizarre case involving the murder of the pony play fetishist—about the difference between having sex and making love, refer to 'sex acts.' _No, this is a dream. This isn't real. It's not Booth, _she thought. The dream-Booth that was standing in the front of the courtroom was talking to her in such a way, using words and handling her in an aggressive manner that Brennan doubted the real Booth would ever do. _But, then_, she thought, _so what? What does it really matter? This is my dream, not his. My dream, and I can do what I want to do. There's no harm done if I tell him now, here, if I want to let him know what I'm really thinking since the dream-Booth's never really had the chance to ask me the right question like the real-Booth did and still hasn't. So, what does it matter? It's my dream, my Booth..._

And, that word suddenly echoed in Brennan's mind: _Mine. _

Feeling her own predatorial instincts renewed, Brennan's eyes flashed with anger and her jaw hardened at his attempt to toy with her using logic. "I'm not embarrassed by what happened nor did I ever wish it didn't happen," she said. Looking away from him, she sighed in frustration as she finally began to let some of the truth she had been bottling up inside her for a week come tumbling out. "Fuck, Booth! I've spent almost every night for the past week dreaming about you, and even my subconscious is now betraying me and taking your part and letting you browbeat me into submission in my dreams."

Again, his formality waned and his dark eyes warmed again somewhat. "You didn't seem to have a problem with being submissive a week ago, Bones," Booth chuckled. "As a matter a fact, I seem to recall that you sorta liked it…got _off_ on it, even, if ya know what I mean."

Brennan stared open-mouthed at his blatant reference to the last time she had actually managed to obtain any form of physical relief. Booth grinned at her response, quite pleased with himself as he had finally left her speechless. Taking advantage of the lull in their war of words, he stepped away from the witness box and slowly walked back towards the prosecutor's table.

After a few seconds, Brennan finally regained the ability to speak as she said, "I know that, Booth! Don't you think I know that? How could I _not _know that?" She bit her lip for a few seconds, before looked at where Booth had walked, his back still turned away from her. Somehow that made things a bit easier for her to process and concede as she admitted, "And, you know what, Booth? That's what pisses me off the most."

Slowly turning around, Booth tilted his head at her and asked, "And, why's that, Bones?"

"Because," Brennan lamented. "I've never said that I didn't find our encounter to be very pleasurable, very enjoyable, Booth. I told you that, several times. From right before I left you—"

"Naked, and alone in bed, Bones," Booth interrupted, unbuttoning his suit coat and carefully shrugging out of it one arm at a time. "Which you should know that you should never ever do to a guy like you did to me, particularly after you just sucked me off as expertly as you did by the way, because that's just not how it's done. It's just not a very nice thing to do, FYI."

His movements caught Brennan slightly unawares. She watched in fascination as Booth began to remove his coat. _What the hell is he doing? _He said nothing, each movement slow and deliberate, and Brennan felt her mouth go dry as she watched him. _Why is Booth taking off his jacket—and, oh, shit. _She then realized exactly _what _he was doing, felt her throat go even drier if that were possible, and shook her head in panicked excitement. _Damn. No. Damn it. No. Damn, damn, damn! _

As soon as Brennan saw the suit jacket start to come off, leaving Booth still looking quite respectable in his white dress shirt, burgundy tie, and the suit's three-button vest, she knew she was in trouble. _Big trouble. _Squirming a bit in her seat, Brennan quickly tried to push the thoughts that flooded her brain away from her conscious mind, but quickly found that such a strategy didn't work very well. She couldn't help it as she stared in appreciation at him and the way she knew his muscular shoulders and arms filled out his starched white shirt. _Ohhhhhh…Ummm…he's taking off his jacket, and, oh—damn. Damn, damn, damn! That's, ummm, good. Good, but so not good._

"It _was_ good, Bones," Booth chuckled. Brennan's head snapped up to meet his gaze, uncertain to what he was referring. He merely shrugged his shoulders as he said, "Very, _very _good, as I seem to recall telling you. Amazing, great, in fact." He paused for a minute, tilted his head, and looked over at her as she said, "But, even still, it's nice to hear, Bones. I'm not saying stuff like that has to be said all the time, but, every so often? It's nice to hear, especially from someone like you."

"I have told you, more than once," Brennan said, attempting to defend herself. "Don't forget after we got back from Fairfax—"

"Yes, yes, you did," he said absently, almost as if he voiced the words merely to placate her, as though the words themselves, and the admission he had made to her, all seemed suddenly rather unimportant to him.

Starting to feel as if she were losing his attention, as Booth's participation in their banter had clearly started to wane, Brennan became slightly annoyed, but also slightly curious as to why he was doing what he was doing exactly as he stood in front of the prosecutor's table. Thinking perhaps a question of her own might redirect his attention, she continued, "So, Booth, you tell me. How many times do I have to admit I enjoyed it?"

Holding his suit jacket in his hands, Booth seemed to have gone from half-paying attention to Brennan to ignoring her completely. His full attention seemed riveted on the woolen garment he had removed as he examined a spot on one of the sleeves. Moving his finger over the spot, almost as if a stain had caught his attention, Booth rubbed his thumb back and forth a few times, before he shrugged and folded his suit coat in half. The deliberate movement, and its very pointed significance, weren't lost on Brennan, as she recalled _exactly _how and what that particular movement felt like, causing her to grow even more uncomfortable, as she again shifted in her chair. Booth draped the jacket carefully over the railing behind the prosecutor's table before he finally turned around and glanced back at her.

Booth looked at her, his eyes narrowed and now somewhat darker, but still he said nothing as he reached down to his wrist. Brennan stared at him, transfixed, as he slowly twisted each of the curved, single-piece silver cufflinks free from the French cuffs and dropped them, one and then the other, onto the varnished wooden table. Each cufflink hit the table top with a loud clatter that echoed through the empty courtroom, sending a shiver up Brennan's spine. The shiver grew stronger, _much _stronger as she watched Booth slowly and deliberately roll up his sleeves. She found herself admiring his hard-muscled, well-defined forearms, marveling at the way the tanned skin of his arms contrasted against the crisply starched white fabric of his shirt.

Brennan unconsciously wet her lips as she recalled exactly what and how those hands could do—could do to _her _when he was properly motivated. Suddenly, the minor arousal that she'd been pushing away for several minutes suddenly won out over the imperious demands that her brain had made of her body to stop reacting in _that _way to Booth's mere presence. The physical stimuli had done their work, making Brennan wonder if that had been his goal all along in his impromptu diversion from questioning her. The familiar throbbing between her legs began to pulse, turning from a minor sensation that she could ignore into something much more powerful. Brennan knew what was happening as soon as it started, and that fact was merely verified quite quickly. Considering the fact that she wasn't wearing any clothing, Brennan felt the tell-tale stickiness between her legs almost as soon as she allowed herself the luxury of the thought. _Booth really is quite good looking. _Another part of her brain suddenly howled in indignant rage. _For fuck's sake Brennan, have some self-respect! Come on, goddammit! _she chastised herself without any mercy or consideration.

Looking at her with a curious stare as Brennan mentally warred with herself, Booth's body shook slightly with a restrained chuckle. Distracted as she was, still standing at attention, hands pressed hard against the smooth firmness of the witness box's wooden railing, it took her a moment to notice that he had begun to move once more. Walking up to where she stood with her hands planted palm down on either side of the wooden banister of the witness stand, Booth instantly covered hers with his own, much larger hands. They were—except for the slight calluses that Brennan noted on his right palm, thumb and right index finger, which she knew was the result of years spent firing a pistol—soft and warm, and she felt the dim roar of increasing blood flow begin to fill her ears. _God, I can smell him still, _she thought. _That goddamn sandalwood aftershave, and his body wash. Fuck! Not good. _She observed the thick veins that ran along the tops of his hands, over his wrists and down his well-defined forearms before disappearing underneath his rolled-back sleeves. _Not helping. Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

"It's okay, Bones," Booth said softly, leaning into her a bit, his hands pressing hers even harder against the wood rail.

"What's okay?" she muttered.

Brennan's eyes darted to Booth's, each meeting the other in a stare they held between them for a few seconds. If his following words hadn't confirm the fact that, somehow, someway, he knew that she was fighting with herself, and fighting with herself because of _him_—how _she _was responding to _him—_the wicked glee that danced in his animated eyes would have been enough of a hint. Again, with an intense deliberateness to his actions, he punctuated each word in his sentence. "It won't kill you, you know?"

"What won't?" _Please, please don't say what I think you're going to say—_

"It's okay," he repeated. "You can admit that you like the way I smell," Booth said with an aggravating smirk that inflamed her anger and ardor further.

"Fuck!" Brennan exclaimed. "What the fuck, Booth?"

His only response was his hearty laughter, and Brennan hated him in that moment. She hated being laughed at, made fun of. "I can't even have my own internal monologue to myself? Seriously? Why?"

Booth laughed as he pulled away and shrugged playfully. "Your dream, Bones." He paused and then titled his head at her as Booth said mysteriously, "Maybe I'm not the one calling the shots here, after all." He stopped, cocked his head and then said in a slightly more serious tone of voice, "And, I'm _not _making fun of you. You're just taking this _way _too seriously, and that's what's so funny."

With a huff, Brennan flung herself back down into the witness chair. Glaring up at him, her decision made, she finally conceded defeat. Logic dictated, after all, when it was futile to continue to maintain such pretenses. "Okay, Booth. As usual, we'll do it your way. You want the answer to your question? _Fine._Here it is. I'm not in denial."

He arched a skeptical eyebrow. "Then, why, Dr. Brennan, have you spent the entire week in an almost constant state of sexual arousal—a most heinous state to which you've cruelly and unusually confined yourself—merely because you've forced yourself to deny the fact that each morning when you wake up, you're in desperate need of sexual release and refuse to do what you need to do to achieve a proper climax?"

"I'm not desperate—" Brennan tried to interrupt, showing the very desperation of which he had spoke as she tried to defend herself.

Booth, reassuming his formal demeanor, ignored her interruption as he continued to speak, even if his next words did address her most recent claim. "Your actions say otherwise, Dr. Brennan. Moreover, your behavior makes no sense, particularly when it represents such an aberration from your own well-known, self-professed motto of 'there's nothing wrong with satisfying simple biological urges.'"

"I _knew _it," Brennan said, shaking her head in disgust. "I just knew it. I knew you'd bring _that _up—"

"It's an appropriate, relevant and a probative piece of evidence, Dr. Brennan," he retorted.

"If I wanted to masturbate, I would," Brennan said sharply. "You're correct when you say I've never had a problem satisfying any of my biological urges or physical imperatives, either with a partner or by myself, as the whim takes me—"

Booth snickered loudly at her use of the word 'whim', but didn't say anything as she glared at him in open annoyed hostility. Continuing, Brennan said, "As I was saying, I have absolutely no qualms about self-gratification, as evidenced by my ownership of several masturbatory aides—"

"Okay, there, Bones," Booth did interrupt this time, a look suddenly coming onto his face. "That's enough. We're not talking about any evidence you want to bring into this proceeding."

Arching an eyebrow at him, Brennan noted his discomfort and said evilly, "What, Booth? The idea of talking about the fact that I own a vibrator, several, in fact, make _you _uncomfortable?"

"Of course not, Bones."

She held his gaze for a minute, and she knew she had him as he looked at her with a mixture of intense curiosity and a need to control that curiosity.

"Then, Booth, feel free to question me all you want. My favorite's the purple Rabbit Vibrator I bought that's made out of this very soft jelly material. It has sixteen functions—which has always seemed to be more than enough to satisfy me. It's waterproof, remote controlled, a bit noisy, but that's never been a big deal as far as I was concerned. What _is_a big deal is the fact that it has a rotating head at the tip of its shaft that works at the same time the clitoral stimulator shifts between randomized patterns of vibration—"

"Again, Dr. Brennan," Booth suddenly snapped, his voice terse and with an distinct hint of danger in it. "We would remind you that you only need answer questions posed to you by the prosecution. It's not necessary to volunteer—"

"And, as I was saying," Brennan said, her point made. "If I wanted to masturbate, I would, particularly given the fact that no one can do it, no one can make me feel the way I like to feel best, no one knows me well enough to be able to do the things I both want and need done like I can do it myself. Thus, since I believe we've now clearly established that I have no problem, in theory or practice, with the idea of masturbation, I'd like to make it clear that the reason I've curbed my baser instincts is because there weren't any significant instincts to mitigate. I know you don't believe me when I say this, but I've simply had no inclination or need to do so—"

At this, Booth guffawed loudly, the formality falling away once more. "Okay, seriously, Bones. What the hell? You really think I'm going to buy that one? It didn't work when all I had to do was touch your tits once or twice after we'd been in bed for a total of about two minutes, tops, and I already had you coming, so that's really not going to fly here." He raised his eyebrows and tilted his head in an expression she had seen him use a hundred times before in the interrogation room when he was about to back a suspect into a corner, metaphorically speaking. "You can't realistically deny you've been horny every day since you left my bed, and, in all seriousness maintain the stance that you've haven't done anything about it simply because there wasn't anything that needed to be done—"

"I do," Brennan insisted, suddenly her logical decision to surrender pushed aside as her competitive nature refused to allow her to concede to Booth—either the real-Booth or the dream-Booth who were both identically cocky to the point of causing her intense aggravation and annoyance—if he was going to be this arrogant about the entire situation. _No, there's no point. Why should I tell him anything_? Brennan thought. _Why should I give a single centimeter on this point, or, for that matter, any of the others? No. I'm not going to do it. I'm just not. _So, when faced with no other choice but to concede, she fell back on the only option left to her: deciding there would be no other evidence that could prove it otherwise—it was just Booth's word against hers: she lied...blatantly. "That's exactly what I'm saying. I dispute that claim. It's inaccurate, and, moreover, you have no way to prove—"

"You're lying, Bones," he chided her. "And, more importantly, I'm gonna prove it."

"Oh, I'd like to see that," Brennan said, arrogant in her assumption that she had won this point.

"Sure," Booth said with an accommodating nod of his head. "Just one sec."

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><p><em>Ah, yes—a wee cliffhanger.<em>

_Would you believe there's more fun yet to come?_

_(Of course there is!)_

_If we see those reviews pouring in,  
>we'll be caught up in the enthusiasm<br>and that means will surely post more  
>of these chapters more quickly.<em>

_More reviews = happier writers = more updates._

_You know what to do, people.  
>Click that little review button down there.<em>

_Yep, that's the one.  
><em>


	6. Chapter 6: Due Process

**Cognitive Dissonance  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128  
><strong>Rated: <strong>M**  
>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

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><p><em>Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this crazy little fic so far. If you've been lurking (reading but not reviewing—and we know there are a lot of you out there doing that, based on the story stats), please take a moment, step out of the shadows and tell us what you think. <em>

_**Unf alert: ** Yep, uh-huh. This one has even more of that tingly unfness than some of the other ones have. (Awesome, right?) So any of you sensitive folks who might have accidentally stumbled on this chapter, turn back now or be permanently scarred for life. The rest of you, grab a cold washcloth, fan or glass of ice water and read on._

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><p><strong>Chapter 6 - Due Process<strong>

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><p>Turning around, Booth confidently walked back to the prosecution table. Brennan watched him as he went, a thousand thoughts going through her mind as she wondered what it was that he could have that would be able to prove that she was lying. It took Booth only a few seconds to find what he was looking for and grabbing something, he turned sharply on his heels. He began to walk back to the witness box, clenching the item in his hand as if it were the Holy Grail. It took Brennan a few seconds to get her bearings as she started to feel her world spin around her after she saw an evil smirk coming into Booth's eyes, presumably as he realized that she saw what he was holding in his hands—a rather small piece of delicate ivory-colored fabric—and knew it for <em>exactly <em>what it actually was.

_Oh, shit,_ she thought, her heart rate increasing ten-fold. _No, no, no. _Brennan had to stop herself from shaking her head to keep her body from mimicking her brain's vehement denial of what Booth was holding. _No. Where? How? Where did he get those? How could he have_—? _Shit. No. Shit, shit, shit! _She choked back a sob of frustration as Booth walked forward and placed the piece of material in front of her.

"The prosecution submits this article into evidence as Exhibit Number One." Booth stepped back and pointed at the crumpled wad of fabric that now sat in front of her. "So, Dr. Brennan, my next question is...do you recognize these?" he asked.

Brennan knew when she was beaten. She hated it, and hated Booth in that minute for besting her. However, pursing her lips together in a firm line, she shook her head once before she reluctantly glanced down at the offensive item—not that she even really needed to do so. She knew exactly what 'Prosecution Exhibit Number One' was, although she did want to know _how_ Booth had gotten his hands on them. Finally, looking up and seeing his smug, amused face waiting for her to answer, Brennan finally said, "Yes."

"What are they?" Booth questioned her. His jaw shifted from left to right as he continued to watch the expression on her face. He then began to walk around the witness stand like a predator circling its prey. "Or, if you prefer, why do you recognize these, Dr. Brennan?"

"Because," Brennan muttered. "They're mine."

"Thank you, Dr. Brennan," Booth said with a faint, congenial nod. "But, can you be more specific, please?"

"They're my panties," Brennan snapped, looking him directly in the eyes again, her tone growing louder. "They're mine, okay? So, do you want me to sign a sworn affidavit attesting to my claim of legal ownership for a pair of Victoria's Secret high-cut cotton panties, or what, Booth?"

"No, that will not be necessary, Dr. Brennan," Booth said formally, but with a raucous laughter still dancing, barely constrained, behind his eyes. "Your affirmative response just now was more than enough for the purposes of satisfying this proceeding," he said.

"I'm glad to know that something's satisfying about this whole fucking charade because I sure as hell don't see anything here for anyone to be satisfied by—"

"Maybe you aren't looking hard enough, Bones," Booth said, interrupting her tirade, "or at the right person to see how you can be satisfied—that is, if you stopped being so bitchy for more than five seconds." Then, resuming his more formal demeanor, Booth continued, "Dr. Brennan, can you please examine Prosecution Exhibit Number 1 and explain why their current state offers probative evidence relevant to the outcome of this proceeding?"

Crossing her arms, Brennan shook her head. Even if she was going to give in and admit defeat, a part of Brennan still yelled at her to keep fighting, as that was her nature: she wasn't and never had been a quitter or someone who allowed herself to be subtly but consistently browbeaten or downright blatantly bullied into submission. At that thought, she came to the conclusion that a bit of a compromise was in order. But, that having been said, she decided that if she was going to concede because she knew she was beaten, at the very least, she wasn't going to make it easy for Booth. "No," she growled.

A frown cracking his exterior cool, Booth shot her a warning look as he said, "Bones—"

Brennan scowled, grabbed the panties, and then tossed them sharply at Booth. He caught them with his right hand and a smile spread across his face as she told him, "Fuck it. Fine. They're soaked."

"Why?" Booth pressed her, his eyes glistening with barely suppressed laughter.

"Because," Brennan snapped. "I was obviously sexually aroused when I was wearing them, enough so that, since I was very wet, Booth, my body produced enough evidence of my arousal that it physically manifested itself," she retorted. Holding his gaze, she then added as a small taunt at Booth, "Duh."

Recognizing the quip for the challenge it was to him, Booth nodded at her. "Well, you were the one who started talking about introducing evidence here, Bones," he said. He smirked at her again as he added, "You know, your life would be a lot easier if you would just accept the fact that someone is always going to be around that can do something better than you can—including make you come, Bones."

"And, that someone would be you in this case, Booth?" Brennan shot back at him.

Booth shrugged. "In this case, sure. Because, Bones—" He chuckled again. "You said it yourself—I'm _quite _good when I want to be."

"For fuck's sake—"

"Now, Dr. Brennan," Booth said, straightening his posture as he resumed his formal, prosecutorial manner and continued with his previous line of questioning. "As to the evidence represented by Prosecution's Exhibit Number One, do you remember the circumstances under which this particular incident of intense sexual arousal took place?"

Brennan shot Booth a look that seemed to say '_Really? You really want to do this?' _Booth widened his eyes a bit as if to challenge her, and she sighed. "Fine. Fine. Fine! Yes, I remember."

"Remember—?"

"I remember quite clearly the occasion on which I was wearing the panties that you've pulled as evidence in support of this goddamn witch hunt," Brennan said.

"This is only as difficult as you're making it, Bones," Booth said, breaking character once more. "We can stop this any time if you'd just give in—"

"Not going to happen, Booth," Brennan retorted with a sharp trill in her voice.

With a nod, as almost if he'd been expecting her blatant refusal to comply, Booth resumed his earlier line of questioning. "Now, then, bringing us back to the issue at hand, i.e., the occasion on which you experienced the circumstances that resulted in such a strong arousal—now when was this?" he asked with a vague smirk.

Brennan sighed heavily as she said, "Monday." She paused, and then corrected herself. "Or, to be more precise, Sunday night, because I woke up wearing them on Monday morning," Brennan said pointedly. "Happy now?"

"And, why were you wet when you woke up on Monday morning?" Booth inquired, leaning against the side of the jury box as he awaited her response, even though they both already knew the answer. He met her eyes with a casual grin that both attracted and infuriated her.

Brennan held his gaze for several seconds, her feeling—that he was daring her to see if there was some way for her to legitimately offer him a real challenge where she was concerned—continuing to grow with each passing minute. Deciding at that moment that she had had _enough _of this, Brennan felt as if she had been pushed far enough and dug in her heels as she once again shook her head. "I'm not answering that."

"Yes," Booth told her firmly in response to her stubbornness. "Yes, you are."

Shaking her head again, Brennan repeated, "No—no, I'm not."

"You have to," he insisted. "You're still under oath, remember, Dr. Brennan?"

"Fuck that," she muttered. "I'm done with this. I'm tired of you pushing me around, trying to use this sham of a legal proceeding to get me to say what you want me to say just because you want me to say it. I'm done. Finished. _Done._"

"No, you're not," Booth laughed again with a small shake of his head. "Far from it, Bones. Now, answer the damn question."

"No," Brennan said. Suddenly, a very self-satisfied look came into her eyes as she said, "I'm not answering that question because I don't have to—"

"Says who?"

"The U.S. Constitution," Brennan volleyed back, a bit of excitement coming into her voice as she shared her latest epiphany. "I know my rights, Booth, and I don't have to answer that question because I'm taking the Fifth."

Booth shook his head in mildly annoyed amusement as he said, "You can't do that, Bones."

"Of course I can," Brennan said, sitting back in her chair, pleased with herself as she thought she had finally found a logical way with which to combat the absurdity of the entire situation. "I have a constitutional right not to incriminate myself. Since this is a court of law, I'm entitled to due process, including—"

Booth laughed. "Oh, don't you worry about that, Bones. You'll get due process all right," he told her. "Because, you're right. There _is _a process here, and so I'll make sure you get _exactly _what you're due, when and where—and how—I see fit to process you, Bones."

Brennan swallowed nervously, suddenly uncertain as to where this thing—this dream?—where _whatever _this thing was between them was now heading after the obvious change in the tone of Booth's voice. It irritated her immensely that she suddenly seemed to have a complete and utter lack of ability to control the direction of the discussion—or any ensuing actions of consequence. "No, Booth," she insisted. "I know my rights. This is a court of law, and—"

"Simmer down there," Booth said, pointing a finger at her. "And, no, it's not. Who said that? Nobody said anything about this being a court of law, Bones." He stopped, a wide grin breaking out as if an amusing thought had suddenly occurred to him. Sharing it with her, he was still smiling as he said, "See, this isn't a court of law, Bones. This is a court of Booth. That means _my_ court, _my_ rules."

"We're in a courtroom, Booth," she said with gritted teeth. "And, I'm apparently on trial for something, regardless of how ludicrous this entire sham of a pseudo-legal proceeding is, which means that I am entitled to certain basic protections under law—"

"Nope," Booth insisted, walking towards her with a wide grin on his face. "Didn't you just hear what I told you? The only law that applies here is _mine_. This is _my _court. _Mine_. My court, and everything that's in this courtroom is _mine_." He stopped, wagging his finger at her as he said in gentle chastisement, "Didn't we go over this already, Bones? I thought you finally got this through that beautifully thick skull of yours right before I started drilling into you last week." He flashed his eyebrows as he smiled at his own remark. He gestured vaguely—whether at the courtroom or at Brennan's person, she couldn't say—as he repeated his earlier statement. "This is _mine_. All mine. _Mine_. Understand? _Mine_."

At his final word, Booth leaned over the railing of the witness stand and reached out to touch her. Although she could have easily pulled away, Brennan didn't do so as she felt him cup one of her breasts in the palm of his hand. He took his callused right thumb and flicked it over her nipple, watching in pure delight as it hardened into a delicious peak in front of him.

"You remember that, right, Bones?" he breathed.

"Yes—" she said, her eyes closed as she uttered the half-strangled word, another renewed flush of wetness between her legs making its presence immediately known. _Damn. Damn, damn, damn! Oooohhh…_

"That's right," Booth repeated. "You _do _remember that part."

"Yes—" she said again breathlessly.

Booth rewarded her with another slight tweak of the nipple that he had teased into standing at attention for both of them. She hissed in obvious pleasure at his movement, and he chuckled.

"So, are we agreed then, Bones?' Booth said. He released her nipple, gave the bottom of her breast one more soft and full caress, squeezing it lightly before he released it. "_Mine_," he emphasized, licking his lips in anticipation.

Struggling for breath, Brennan swallowed once before she opened her eyes to look at him and said, "This is complete and utter bullshit."

Booth let loose a throaty laugh as he shook his head knowingly. "Now, now, Bones. _Tsk tsk tsk. _Don't make me find you in contempt of court. In case it escaped that beautifully dense brain of yours, I'm not only the prosecutor here, I'm the judge and jury, too."

Brennan barked a sarcastic laugh at Booth's statement "Oh, surely, that's both equitable and unbiased."

"Maybe not," he conceded. "But, tough. Deal with it."

"That's what I always do, isn't it, Booth?" She glared at him. "'Deal with it'. Deal with _you_," Brennan said.

"I don't seem to recall you complaining too much when you dealing with me got you off _three _times, Bones," he observed wryly.

"No!" To what part she was denying, Brennan wasn't exactly sure. However, she felt a need to reassert herself as she looked at Booth.

"Careful, Bones," Booth said again, leaning in closer to her as his voice dropped to nearly a whisper. "You're very close to being found guilty."

"Guilty of what?" Brennan asked, the incredulity straining in her voice.

Booth—moving with a speed that, by this point, Brennan still didn't know why she was continually surprised at—suddenly walked around the witness box, entered it, and yanked her up out of the chair, in a motion that reminded her of the way he manhandled her in his bed. Pulling her naked body taut against his, Brennan wanted to scream from the sensory overload. Her nerves were on fire as she felt the slightly rough fabric of his wool suit brush against her naked skin, and she was overwhelmed with a renewed whiff of his overpoweringly familiar scent once more. Turning his head towards her ear, she shivered as she felt Booth's moist breath on her earlobe.

"Whatever I say, Bones," Booth whispered, a hint of danger coming into his voice. Brennan felt her heart race speed up incrementally as she felt his lips moved towards her earlobe. Her entire body was taut in nervously expectant anticipation, and when he finally moved, she almost felt her knees give out under her. Booth took her earlobe, and he nipped at it with his teeth, eliciting a small but involuntary whimper from Brennan before soothing the bite with the cool and velvety caress of his tongue. "Guilty of _whatever_ I say."

"I'm not letting you control me anymore," Brennan suddenly confessed, hopeless against restraining any more thoughts about him, her reaction to him—or to them—to the confines of her brain.

"Yes," Booth said, nudging her thighs apart with his knee. "Yes, you are."

Brennan could feel Booth's erection straining against the fabric of his suit trousers.

"No—" she protested, but it was only a mere token protest, really. "I can't—I won't."

Moving his hips with a twist, Booth gave a half-thrust into her and punctuated his movement with a simple claim. "Yes, you can, and yes, you are."

"I can't—" Brennan offered lamely again. "I—"

"Stop it, Bones," Booth murmured. "Stop fighting—"

"I can't—"

"God, just stop it, Bones. You've got to stop it. Because, it's foolish. There's no point. There's no reason why you should keep fighting me—fighting yourself—because I'm _not _trying to control you."

"Well, that's sure as hell what it feels like, Booth," Brennan retorted. "And I can't stand it," she admitted finally. "I can't stand the idea of someone trying to control me."

"I know that, Bones. I know that...very, _very _well. Better than most actually. But, you've got to know that I'm not trying to control you," Booth repeated. "Hell, I don't _want_ to control you. I never have—even though you seem to have gotten that stupid idea in your head somehow." He paused and then took a breath before he continued. "I'm not trying to control you, I don't want to control you, and deep down, I think you know that. So, you've got to ease up a bit—"

"I'm perfectly at ease—"

"Yeah," Booth laughed. "So says the woman who hasn't gotten off in a week." He paused, and then tilted his head at her as he said confidently, "Admit it, Bones. You can't stand the fact that you find me attractive. That you think I'm sexy as hell, and have wanted to fuck me from the very first second you saw me—" He stopped for a minute and then shook his head lightly, his tone softening a bit as he added, "You've got to stop that, Bones. So, what? Big deal. What's so bad about it? I make you feel the exact same way you make me feel. So, what?"

"I—"

"No," Booth reiterated. "Stop it. Admit it to yourself, admit how you feel."

"I don't—"

"You do," Booth cut her off again. "You love the way I make you feel. You love the fact that one look from me can reduce you to an irrational, illogical, quivering mess that can't think one goddamn non-emotional thought, Bones. And, it's been that way from the very first time you saw me. Remember? Remember that day at American? In the lecture hall?"

"I do recall—"

"Yeah, you bet your sweet ass you 'do recall'. I think that's one of the reasons you always have gotten yourself off to images of me in suits—at least, before you started in on this ludicrous self-denial thing that you've had going on all week—isn't it? Goes back to that very first time that you saw me at American that day?" Booth pressed.

"No—"

"Yes," Booth emphasized, thrusting at her again, pressing his groin against her hip and holding it there so there was no doubt that she felt his thick arousal through the fabric of his trousers. "You love how I make you feel, but hate yourself afterwards for knowing that someone else can make you feel so out of control." His brown eyes had darkened into pools of obsidian, and she felt very, _very _vulnerable under his burning gaze. "Why? Why do you feel that way? Why can't you trust me? You know I would never hurt you, right? You've gotta know if there was one person in the world you can trust with—"

"With what, Booth?" Brennan snapped, still refusing to concede. "With that type of power over me?"

"Yeah," he said, a bit more softly. "Why don't you trust me?"

"I do trust you," Brennan said quietly. She looked up at him, a pure light of honesty coming into her eyes. "I do trust you," she repeated. "More than I've ever trusted anyone else in my entire life. But, I'm scared, Booth. I'm scared out of my goddamn mind."

"Don't be," Booth said simply, so simply that it both infuriated and dared Brennan to hope that he could be right in the same exact second. "If you trust me, then _trust me_."

"I want to," Brennan admitted softly.

"Then just do it," Booth advised her. "Just do it."

"Do what?" Brennan asked.

"Come here, and take what you want. Stop fighting yourself. Stop being afraid. Your beautiful brain's supposed to be turned off, remember? So, just go with it. Just enjoy things. Enjoy _it_. Enjoy _me_. Enjoy _us_."

"I—" Brennan was close, she was so close to giving in, and Booth sensed it in her. He knew it—he knew he almost had her. _Just a little bit more, _the glint in his eyes seemed to say.

Pulling their bodies a part just a couple of inches, Booth slid his hand down between them. Instantly, with an easy familiarity, his fingers sought out and found Brennan's soft warmth. Toying briefly with her short curls, his fingers danced along the smoothness of her slit, slick with the evidence of her arousal. She whimpered at his actions despite the gentleness of his fingers as they moved.

"You're still fighting, Bones," Booth said. "But, this _is_ better," he acknowledged with an approving flash of his eyebrows. "Fuck, you're so wet," he murmured. "When did this happen?"

"When you started taking off your suit jacket," Brennan confessed instantly. _Oh, God. How can he do __that? How can he make me want to tell him everything? How_—_?_

"Because," Booth said, looking at her, as if she had verbalized her reactions and the ensuing question. "I told you. I'm _me_…and at this point I'm quite the expert on all things Brennan." He smiled, then added with that confident smirk of his that infuriated and inflamed Brennan at exactly the same time, "And, because you find me irresistible."

As if he needed to illustrate his point, Booth moved his index finger up to her clit and traced several quick circles, causing Brennan to hiss at the pure pleasure of it.

"Oh, God—" she moaned, not entirely certain if it was from pleasure, desperation, or some odd combination of the two.

"You're denying what you want, Bones. Stop it. Enjoy. Just let it happen. Let me touch you—"

"You _are_ touching me," Brennan moaned. She arched her back a bit as Booth suddenly slid two of his fingers inside her. "Please, please just—"

"What, Bones?"

Suddenly, she held his gaze as she finally crossed over the line he had been pulling her towards since the entire cross examination had begun. "Please, Booth. Please—don't be a liar," Brennan pleaded. "Don't be wrong when you say I can trust you."

"If you don't know that fact yourself by now, Bones, you don't know me at all," Booth said, his voice dropping half-octave as he punctuated his point with a very pronounced thrust of his fingers inside her.

"I do," Brennan groaned. "Oh, God. I do know you, and I do trust you."

"Then, you'll stop fighting me? Stop fighting yourself? You'll trust me, Bones?" Booth pressed her, pulling his fingers out and bringing them to his lips. He licked them and moaned softly at the taste of her.

"Yes," she breathed, quickly shaking her head, her eyes closing once more as his fingers went back to their work and she let the pleasure begin to overwhelm her. "Oh, God, yes."

Although her eyes were closed, and she couldn't see it, Booth smiled at her. "Good. That's a good thing, Bones. Because it means things can start to change with the fact that you can actually come now—"

"Yes," she repeated. "_Ohhhh, _Booth. Good. So fucking good."

Booth's fingers began to pump in and out of her in rapid motion. Brennan moaned again. Her eyes still closed, she whimpered. "Oh, my God—"

She was close, so close to coming, Brennan knew. And, then suddenly, she was a lot further away then she had been. Booth withdrew his fingers from her again, and she winced at the unexpected empty feeling. Snapping her eyes open, she tilted her head as she watched Booth take a step back and away from her. He smirked at her reaction, quite pleased with himself. He smiled as he said reassuringly, "Don't worry, Bones. I wasn't lying when I said you'd get to come. Just think of this as a brief intermission while the stage is set for act two."

"Act two?" she asked.

Booth nodded with a sly grin. "As in, act two being _better _than act one."

"Better?" Brennan asked, her heart beating so fast it seemed to distort the sound of Booth's voice that suddenly seemed so fucking sexy, even more so than normal. "Better than what?"

"Rising action," he said with a smile, as he reached down to unfasten his 'Cocky' belt buckle, which had been concealed by the vest he wore. "Better than before. As in, better than ever before, Bones."

Booth quickly unbuttoned his trousers, and Brennan shivered at the sound of his zipper as he stepped closer to her again.

"I want—" she began to call out.

Shaking his head slightly, Booth stopped long enough to place a gentle finger to her lips as he said, "Shush."

"But—"

"I know what you want," Booth said, with a wink. "Trust me, Bones. _Trust me_."

Biting her bottom lip, Brennan nodded slightly. Booth smiled in approval. As he stood in front of her, he quickly pulled down his trousers and boxer shorts in a single motion, letting them fall gently just above his knees as he reached for his thick, stiff cock that already stood proudly at attention, ready and willing to serve. Brennan, staring at him in silent appreciation, almost reached out to pull him towards her. However, she resisted, and instead, finally did as he had asked of her—she trusted him. Booth leaned forward and pressed against her with his left hand, drawing his thumb up across her wet curls and down again from her clit to her slippery slit.

"You want this?" he whispered, his hot breath tickling the flushed skin at the base of her neck as his lips brushed against her clavicle.

"Yes," Brennan cried softly, rocking her hips forward and opening her legs wider. "Yes," she repeated. He stood on the floor in front of the door to the witness box, and as he leaned forward, the short step placed him at the perfect height.

"Yeah?" he asked, his voice tense as he stroked the tip of his cock against her slippery folds. "You sure? You trust me? You're certain, Bones? You really trust me?"

She squirmed forward in her seat and clenched her teeth. _Oh, God, yes. Just, please. Please do something. I trust you. Just please_— "Yes!" she grunted, thrusting her hips towards his arousal, allowing her body to beg in a way she refused to utter with words. "Booooth—"

Delighted with her response, Booth leaned closer and pressed slowly into her, entering her halfway, then pulled out as he watched her face contort at the loss of contact.

"Say it," he prodded her. "You have to say it out loud. You have to say it to me, to us, so there's no wiggle room to deny it after the fact, Bones. Say you want this," he said, his dark eyes fixed on hers. His breaths came and fell heavily as he stroked his cock, lubricated as it was with the slippery fluids of her arousal. "Come on, Bones," he whispered. "Just say it."

"I want this," she finally admitted. "I-I trust you, and I want this. God, I want you, and I want this. I want all of it, Booth. All of it. All of you."

He raised his chin and smiled, leaned forward again and then drove into her with a loud grunt that echoed off the walls of the empty courtroom. Booth reached for her, his large, strong hands wrapping around her hips and pulling her closer to him. He withdrew again, pausing to admire his handiwork in the expression on her face, then, rolling his hips back, thrust forward and reentered her roughly. Booth growled and bent his head down, nipping with his teeth and sucking at the tender, creamy flesh at top of her breast as he pounded into her again and again.

"Oh, God—" Brennan moaned. She would never get tired of this, being with him in this way and feeling how he made her felt. _Never_, she resolved in that moment, logical explanations as to the absurdity of such absolute claims fluttering straight out of her head. _No, never tired of it. _The way he filled her up. _Always will want it. Always will want him_, Brennan admitted, at last. Suddenly, recalling Booth's earlier words, it didn't seem like all that big a deal. It was such a simple admission, really, in the grand scheme of things—and it felt so good to say it, to admit it. _So fucking good_.

Brennan felt herself tighten around him as he rammed into her, and she felt the strange contrast between the smooth skin below his navel, the crisp cotton of his shirt and the slightly rough texture of his wool vest. Her skin felt like it was on fire, so intense was the cacophony of sensations—his hard, rhythmic pounding into her, the silky softness of his skin, the warmth of his hands on her hips, the almost angry nipping at her breast and the possessive sucking at the base of her neck, the incredible fullness she felt as his thick, hard cock seemed to touch every part of her, the almost electrical shock she felt each time he bottomed out inside of her and his pelvis pressed hard against her clit, the soft, low sound of her moans and the guttural, animalistic grunts that punctuated each of his hard, ever-faster thrusts.

"Booth, oh, God, Booth—" she cried out in blatant desperation.

For a split second, his eyes met hers, and Booth smiled at her, an unspoken promise as he seemed to be acknowledging the fact that yes, yes, this was her reward for finally meeting the challenge of his earlier dare to her. Brennan wanted to laugh at the sheer delightful relief of it. She nodded her understanding, and Booth rewarded her with another wonderful thrust, one that filled her more deeply and in a more satisfying way than she had ever thought it physically possible to achieve. Booth opened his mouth to say something, and Brennan knew, she _knew _in that moment that he was going to call out her name. Finally, he was going to call out her name in the way that only an appreciative lover can during sex. She craved it, wanted it, almost as much as she wanted to finally reach a climax of her own—and until that very moment, she hadn't quite known how much it was important to her. It was more important to her than almost anything else she could think of, even more important to Booth asking her the question she'd wanted him to ask her since at least they'd talked on the way to and from the house of Melissa Laudas' parents in Fairfax: _Knowing then what you know now, would you still sleep with me_—w_ould it still happen? _

And, in that moment, being asked that question by Booth was no longer as important to Brennan as she had once thought it actually was. It simply didn't matter anymore because she already knew the answer, and felt it with every stroke of his body into hers: _Yes._

Smiling at him, Brennan watched him in expectant pleasure as she instinctively knew that she was within a millimeter's distance of _finally _achieving more than one of her goals. As if in slow motion as Booth opened his mouth to speak, and Brennan knew what he was going to say at exactly the same time she felt herself spiraling downward as the promise of much-awaited release coiled deep in her belly when—

Suddenly, the fullness she felt deep inside of her vanished, and she was left with only an empty, searing lack, a painful, palpable stillness as Booth disappeared, that one crucial word left sadly unspoken as he vanished, along with the courtroom, in a split second of disorientation.

Brennan's eyes snapped open, and she saw the first faint rays of sunlight peeking through her bedroom window. At some point in the course of the night, she had rolled over on her side. Her legs were drawn up and pulled close to her, with Brennan waking up in what could almost be described as the fetal position. She swallowed once, realizing how dry her throat was, and then winced as she shifted her legs slightly. The tightness of her entire body hummed in unreleased tension once more, Brennan immediately recognizing the unpleasant sensations for what they were as she tried to figure out just how painfully aroused she still was. _Fuck_, Brennan thought to herself. _No, no, no. He can't do this to me. He can't. I was so close. So fucking close. He was inside me, and I still haven't—FUCK! _

At war with herself, Brennan moaned in frustration as she realized that she had awoken, once again, completely worked up and without having achieved any release, despite her willing submission right before she had been pulled out of her dream…_By what? What the fuck woke me up? _Brennan thought angrily.

She glanced at the clock and realized it wasn't her alarm. It was just after 6:00, and her alarm wasn't set to go off for another half hour. Then, her eyes narrowing, Brennan saw her phone buzzing loudly on the nightstand table where she had plugged it in before she went to bed the night before. It vibrated with a cheery perkiness that made Brennan never want so much as she had in that moment to completely and utterly obliterate something from existence. Staring at it with intense hatred, Brennan knew what the buzz meant—an incoming text message. _Fucking phone! Fuck! I don't want to hear any goddamn buzzing unless it's my vibrator right now! Damn it!_

Clenching her fists, Brennan rolled over, wincing at the pulsing sensation between her legs as she grabbed the phone. She immediately hated herself as the move just showed her how excruciating her arousal was, and that, despite the claim of dream-Booth, once again, Brennan hadn't actually come before she woke up.

Pressing a button to see who in the hell had such rotten timing and had ruined what had promised to be the best morning she'd had in an entire goddamn week, Brennan shook her head in disbelief as she saw the incoming text message icon light up.

_Incoming Text from Booth 6:02am_

"Fuck!" Brennan roared. She resisted the urge to throw the phone as hard as she could against the opposite wall. "Fuck, fuck, fuck!" _Fucking Booth_. Brennan thought. _How fucking predictable. He finally gets me to give in, and then he turns around and ruins it! Not trying to control me. Right! Fucking Booth. Fuck!_

Jabbing her phone, Brennan brought up the offensive text message. _Another body found. This one Greenbelt Park proper._

Brennan stared at the text message with a mixture of disbelief and angry desperation on her face. As she started at the message, Brennan saw the phone vibrate again with another new message. _Wakey, wakey. No more snoozing. We've got a dead body._

Hastily, and with as much venom as she could manage, Brennan typed. _Again? Seriously? _She frowned at the message as it fled into the ether with a zipping sound, irritated that she couldn't seem to fully translate her anger into a text message._  
><em>  
>It took only a few seconds for a response to come. <em>Yup. Part flesh, part bone. I need your body over there, pronto.<em>

Brennan scowled as she thought, _Oh, you've got to be kidding me. Need my body, huh, Booth? I suppose you think that's pretty fucking cute. Need my body? Well, I need my body here, thank you very much. Fuck! Fucking Booth. Fuck, fuck, fuck!_

Quickly, Brennan restrained herself from typing a slew of obscenities, and, instead, went with a shorter, but still quite appropriate warning. _If you're joking I'm going to kill you.  
><em>  
>Almost as soon as she had sent the text, his response came. <em>No joke, sorry. Why would I be joking? Cam's on her way now.<em>

Moaning loudly in frustration, Brennan finally gave up as she knew if Cam had hauled herself out of bed, it was real, and the case was serious. Muttering in anger and bitter disappointment, Brennan threw the sheets off of her, sat up, the painful throbbing between her legs still present. She typed with pure fury. _Fine. I'm up. Come get me.  
><em>  
>Shaking her head in disbelief, her resolve renewed and hardened against Booth, Brennan decided that she had made a mistake—even if it was only in her dream. <em>No. No fucking way I'm doing it now<em>, she thought to herself. _No, no, no!_

As she stood up, Brennan realized she wouldn't have much time to get ready and clean up. Her thoughts were confirmed as another text message from Booth came in response to her prior command. _15 min. We'll come together. Leaving my place now._

"Fucking Booth," Brennan muttered as she stalked to her closet, nearly limping as the intense pulse of her arousal stubbornly refused to fade, and began to grab clothing. "_Goddamn_ it!"

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><p><em>Oh, dear. Poor Brennan.<br>_

_Of course, there's more fun yet to come.  
>(Wait...did she actually say "come"?)<br>_

_Folks, let me be absolutely clear:  
>Lesera128 and I <strong>live<strong> for reader reviews.  
>We love to hear what people think of our work.<br>_

_More reviews = happier writers = more updates._

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>Click that little review button down there.<em>

_Yep, that's the one._


	7. Chapter 7: Lesser of the Evils

**Cognitive Dissonance  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128**  
><strong>**Rated: **M**  
><strong>**Disclaimer: **We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

* * *

><p><em>Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this crazy little fic so far. If you've been lurking (reading but not reviewing—and we know there are a lot of you out there doing that, based on the story stats), please take a moment, step out of the shadows and tell us what you think. <em>

* * *

><p><strong>Chapter 7 - Lesser of the Evils<strong>

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><p>All in all, despite the 5:15 wake-up call from the FBI's dispatcher, it was shaping up to be a fairly decent morning as far as Booth was concerned.<p>

As he pulled the Tahoe alongside the curb in front of Brennan's building at twenty past six that Wednesday morning, he was feeling positive. He thought about how things had gone pretty much his way during the prior twenty-four hours: he scored a twelve-pack of Pabst Blue Ribbon tallboy cans at the supermarket Tuesday evening while they were still on sale (_check_); he had gotten Rebecca's OK to take Parker on Saturday (_check_); his hometown heroes, the Philadelphia Flyers, won their game Tuesday night against the hated New Jersey Devils (_check_); he managed a great workout after work at the Hoover gym, getting in a solid round behind the bag as well as doing a few good sets on the bench press (_check_) and as a consequence got a good night of sleep Tuesday night, despite the early wake-up call (_check_); he'd stumbled into the shower half-asleep, but managed to wake up while he quickly dressed and had made good enough time to pick up a couple of cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee and scarf down a couple of glazed donuts on way to Bones' apartment (_check_); and encountered no construction, red lights or traffic accidents on the way to Bones' place (_check_). _Oh, yeah,_ he reminded himself, if he was going to be _completely _honest as to why he was really in such a good mood. _And, then there was that other thing._

_Oh, that. _

Booth felt a faint blush as he thought about what had become a regular part of his morning routine over the course of the last week. True, he'd been half asleep when the dispatcher had called with the news of the latest body. True, he'd remained half asleep as he stumbled into the bathroom, his second in less than twelve hours given that he'd showered the night before after he finished his workout at the gym. There was something almost magic about the way a quick shower could wake him up—and let him deal with that one other small thing that was still lingering from the fantastic dream he'd been having when his cell phone rang at a quarter past five.

_Oh, yeah. There was that._

He hadn't needed to spend that much time letting the steady stream of warm water wash over him as he leaned against the tile for support while the grogginess faded away as his morning hard on throbbed in his grasp. And, when it was done, Booth gasped for breath a few times before he shook his head, switched the water dial to a cooler setting, and cleaned up as he let his head clear. After all, it wasn't the first time he'd rubbed one out in the shower while thinking of his partner—hell, he'd been doing that, more often than he'd like to admit, for years now, going all the way back to the very first day he met her that morning in that lecture hall at American University. But since that night at the nightclub, and the amazing night he'd spent in bed with his partner...well, not a day had gone by that he hadn't had to take care of business at least once a day—particularly when his dreams were as intense as they had been in the last couple of days—and sometimes, especially on those days when he actually got to see her, twice a day.

_What the hell am I doing?_ Booth would ask himself each time as he leaned his head against the cold tile of the shower wall, in that split second between achieving release and his rational mind reasserting control. _This is crazy_, Booth would think to himself. _Absolutely fucking nuts._

But, then, after a few seconds, another voice spoke up in his mind, as the image of Brennan in the blue push-up bra and mesh panties—his most favorite and inspiring recent mental picture of her, which seemed to work perfectly well, regardless of whether she snuck up on him in the Hoover's basement gym, or at the Hoover's indoor gun range, or the rent-by-the-hour batting cages he would sometimes go to on the weekends—jumped back into his mind and left him with a slight twitch of longing. _But, maybe_—_no, maybe it isn't that crazy_, he told himself. _Maybe...maybe if this is what I have to do to keep the edge off, and keep my head screwed on straight while I have to work with he_r, he told himself, _then maybe it's not so crazy, after all. Maybe it's just the lesser of the two evils._

Putting the SUV into park, Booth turned his attention to Brennan's building and glanced up at the window that he knew was hers. He knew that she wasn't sleeping—his earlier text messages had obviously woken her up. But, for a split second, Booth allowed his mind to wander again. _What was she wearing when I texted her? Bra and panties to bed? _He stopped, considered the notion, and then shook his head. _Naaw. Probably not, but she's not really the type that probably sleeps in the nude unless she's got company either. At least..._Booth considered the image of Brennan naked, sprawled out on his sweat-creased sheets, still flushed and glowing from the orgasm he'd just given her. _Naaaw. Probably not naked. She was probably in one of those lacy girly things I've seen her wearing under her robe when I come over in the morning. That black sheer thing that's got the really large belt to tie it in the front_—_the one that makes her skin look even creamier and her hair even shinier and her lips even more kissable and her ass and hips and everything so incredibly fuckable_—

At that thought, Booth thought he might've felt a slight stirring in the vicinity of his groin area, but then smiled when he realized that it was nothing he couldn't, with a little bit of effort and mental discipline, put aside since he was fairly relaxed at the moment. And, he wouldn't be this calm and not able to hide how just the mere thought of Brennan was affecting him if it weren't for the fact that he'd already taken care of business in the shower that morning. _So, yeah, _Booth thought with a wry grin. _Definitely the lesser of the evils._

He glanced up at the rear-view mirror and saw his eyes had darkened just slightly, and he knew _exactly _the reason why. _Yeah, so it's the lesser of the evils, right_? Still glancing in the mirror, Booth paused for a second before he shook his head, took a deep breath, and looked away before he pulled his phone out of his jacket pocket to text her. _Right_.

_Lesser of the evils._

He glanced up again at the second-story window he knew to be hers, saw the light on, and wondered if maybe _she _was in the shower at that minute, dripping wet, water droplets bouncing off of her perfectly round—

_Stop it, Booth._

He stopped as that annoying voice in his head chastised him. Taking another breath, Booth forced himself to stare at his smart phone for a few moments as he calmed down. He gave himself another moment to focus before punching the text message icon. He stared at the empty field, wondering if he should say something clever. _Keep it professional, _he reminded himself. _Strictly professional. _Booth took another deep breath and thumbed a message to his partner:

_I'm out front. Hot coffee awaits. RU ready?_

Booth listened as the message flew off into the ether with a _phwip_ sound. It was going to be a good day, he told himself, saying it as more of a prayer or mantra than as a firm prediction. There was no telling what they'd find when they got to Greenbelt Park, other than what he already knew—a partly skeletonized body found half-buried in a pile of leaves and rotting muck next to a creek—but he hoped it would be a good day anyway. A ding shook him from his thoughts as he saw the screen flash _Incoming Text Message: Bones_. He reached for his coffee and took a quick sip before opening the message.

_On my way down._

Booth smirked as he resisted the urge to allow himself to make another mental quip about Brennan going down on something—and the image it would convey in his head. _Nope_, Booth thought proudly. _Professional. Keeping it strictly professional. And, it's going to be a good day._

A minute or two later, Booth couldn't help but smile as his partner opened the door, and with a soft grunt, climbed up into the Tahoe. Her smooth, straight auburn hair appeared a little damp, as if she had not had enough time to fully blow dry it, and she had it pulled back into a tight ponytail. Brennan was wearing her Jeffersonian jumpsuit and boots, which Booth recognized as perfectly practical for fieldwork of the type she would have to do that morning, but which nonetheless made him frown a little, because—well, it was just _so _drab and _so _sexless the way it hid all of her delicious curves that Booth knew were there in silent repose. _Then again_, he thought wryly, pushing the image of Brennan's curvy hips out of his mind again. _Maybe it's better this way_.

Brennan turned around, casually tossing a nylon duffel bag containing her change of clothes into the back seat of the truck, then laid her waxed canvas bag at her feet. She sighed heavily and reached behind her for the seatbelt, but still hadn't bothered to say a single word of greeting to her partner yet. At last, when she appeared to be ready, Booth turned to her with a bright smile.

"Good morning, Bones," he said to her as she settled into her seat and adjusted her seatbelt.

"Hello, Booth," she said flatly with a certain tightness in her voice that Booth noticed instantly. A few seconds latter, she appeared to be sniffing the air before she glanced over to the center console and saw the two cups of Dunkin' Donuts coffee nestled in the cup holders. Booth waited for her to glance up at him, and he had a winning grin already to go for her when she did so. However, Brennan stymied his when she spoke without looking over at him. "Is one of those for me?" she asked simply, trying to avoid making eye contact with him, but the wonderful warm smell of the freshly brewed coffee—a good smell that instantaneously becomes a great smell, if it's before 7 o'clock in the morning—tempting her to do what she needed to do to confirm what she already knew.

Finally grinning the grin he'd been wanting to flash her for several minutes, Booth pointed to the cup on the right next to her, tapping his index finger on the flimsy plastic lid. "Of course," he said. "Just the way you like it—black with three sugars."

Brennan waited for him to pull his hand away before reaching for her coffee, watching it with eagle eyes as she knew she wouldn't be able to help herself is she touched the real-Booth this soon after the dream-Booth had been doing such wonderful erotic things to her with those same hands that now tapped the lid of her coffee cup so deliberately that it made Brennan remember how he'd so expertly tapped on her clit the same way. She still felt a quivering tingle in her limbs and a lingering sense of agitation after her rude awakening a mere twenty minutes earlier, and the last thing she wanted to do was feel his touch. _Not now, _Brennan thought. _I can't handle this...handle him like that right now_.

Satisfied when his hands returned to the SUV's steering wheel and gear shift, she took her coffee and let the warmth flow into her cold fingers. As she did so, Brennan glanced over at Booth and watched his fingers wrap around the gear shift and pull it down to bring the truck into drive as he pulled away from the curb in just the same way he'd so adroitly wrapped his fingers around her breasts. Shaking her head to push the prurient thoughts out of her mind, Brennan carefully lifted the little flap on the lid of her coffee. She paused as she deeply inhaled the wonderfully smelling liquid and felt the rising steam make its warm moisture felt as it touched her lips, and, though she knew the coffee was very hot, she took a sip anyway. Involuntarily drawing in a sharp breath as the sweet, hot liquid seared her tongue, Brennan had to stop herself from moaning in pain.

"Yeah," Booth said, noticing her reaction as he glanced at her with a sympathetic nod— despite Brennan's best efforts not to let him hear her make a sound that betrayed her. "It's hot there, Bones, so, be careful."

Brennan rolled her eyes and blew softly into the cup. _A little late on that one, Booth. _Brennan thought. _So, we just keep proceeding with your excellent timing, as always. Thank you, Captain Hindsight. Thanks a whole hell of a lot. _Shaking her head as she made a face, Brennan scowled at her partner before she spoke. "I know how to drink hot coffee, Booth," she grumbled.

"Simmer down there, Bones," he said, turning to reach for his own coffee. "Are you alright?" Booth asked, his eyes scanning her face as he brought his own coffee to his mouth.

'_Simmer down'_. Brennan furrowed her brow again and tried to focus on the feel of the styrofoam cup in her hands. '_Simmer down there'...that's...that's what he said when we were_—_when I was...when I couldn't_—_fuck! He said that in the dream. That damn dream. Fuck. _She paused, forcing herself to take a slow breath and push the image of dream-Booth—and, more importantly, what they'd been doing in her dream before she'd been so cruelly awakened—out of her mind.

"I'm fine," Brennan snapped, taking another sip of her coffee, her agitation flaring as she was immediately reminded of the very thing she had spent almost a half-hour trying to put as far out of her mind as possible. _Booth_.

"Are you sleeping all right?" Booth suddenly asked her, his voice low and, as far as she could tell, genuine in his concern for her. He looked over to her and raised his eyebrows expectantly, the way he always did when he was trying to get her to stop obfuscating and admit to something. Brennan remained silent, and, not wanting to press her, Booth brought his eyes and his focus back to the street in front of them.

"No," she said at last, after a few seconds of silent debate in her head. Knowing that Booth wouldn't let the matter drop without _some_ type of explanation, Brennan said, "I didn't sleep very well last night, actually.."

Booth cocked his head and looked over sympathetically. "I'm sorry," he said.

_I wonder why,_ he thought. _She seemed pretty casual the other day about the whole… situation—very compartmentalized, very Bones_.

"So...is everything okay?" he asked, cringing inside at the banality of his questions but wanting desperately to fill the drive over to Greenbelt Park with something other than the uncomfortable silence they had shared too many times over the prior week.

Brennan sighed, staring out the side window to avoid having to look into his brown eyes. _What am I going to tell him_? she thought. _Oh, well, actually, Booth, I had this extremely erotic, highly arousing dream about you, where you were in a courtroom, dressed in the most incredible wool gabardine suit, grilling me about the night we spent together last week and my sexual attraction to you and how you insisted I've been denial about you and us and everything that happened, and then, at the very end of it, when you finally managed to browbeat me into admitting that I want you and trust you and want to be with you, just when you started fucking me so exquisitely_—_I probably would've cried when it was over, by the way, and I never cry_—_but then I woke up before I could come because you had sent me that goddamn text message, only to find out you were on your way to pick me up_. _Fuck! _Brennan nibbled her bottom lip, wondering what she could say to him, even though she wanted nothing more than to be left alone, in silence. But, knowing him as she did, Brennan was aware that the less she said, the more likely he would be to probe into her apparent source of discomfort, which was absolutely the _last_ thing she wanted.

"I was kept awake by a noisy neighbor for a large portion of the night," she finally offered to him by way of an explanation.

"I thought your apartment was pretty well insulated from the sound from neighboring units," Booth said. _Unlike mine_, he frowned, his mind suddenly flashing to their late night encounter the previous week. _She was loud, wasn't she? But, how loud? _Booth thought about that night, not for the first time that week, as he had spent a fair amount of time replaying every single moment, every single action, every single aspect of that night in his head. He again wondered if any of his neighbors had heard her screams that night. He felt his ears get a little hot at the thought that his next-door neighbor, Mrs. Ross, might have heard them going at it.

"Well," she said with more than a slight hint of agitation in her voice, "not when they're right next to an air conditioning vent."

Booth smiled. "Ah, the perils of central A/C," he quipped. "Shared ductwork." _I wish I had central A/C_, he thought, remembering how miserable he was during D.C.'s last summer heat wave. _Window units suck_, _especially when they crap out in the middle of July and Home Depot doesn't expect any more replacements for at least ten days_. He could almost feel the way his clothes stuck to his skin as he and Parker had roasted inside his apartment before they took refuge at Brennan's pool during the sweltering afternoons of that particular weekend.

Brennan looked at him with a scowl on her face. "A male neighbor, presumably the man who lives above me, engaged in a series of very loud sexual encounters with a very vocal female partner last night, and they must have been right next to one of the wall vents because the sound carried right into my bedroom. I believe the exact descriptor that you would use appropriately to convey the full experience was that his partner was a 'screamer'…or, more likely, just faking her orgasms to make her partner in copulation feel more manly." She paused, and then added, almost as if it were an afterthought instead of the core of how she felt at the moment. "It was _quite _irritating."

She paused, watching for Booth's reaction. At first, he didn't seem to be interested in what she was saying in the slightest, causing Brennan to wonder if he was even paying attention to what she was saying.

"Of course," Brennan resumed speaking. "If she was 'faking it' it, then I'm probably not the only one who was inconvenienced by his sexual inconsideration. But, amid the all-consuming sensations that males must feel when they ejaculate, I know you're all just like that sometimes," she added.

Brennan's mind flashed back to the previous week, just for a few seconds, and she recalled that, despite her insinuation to the contrary, Booth had actually been quite an attentive partner that night—in more ways than one.

"_Oh, that's okay," Booth said. "As I have every intention of making you scream again before I'm through with you, Bones. And, that's a promise."_

And, it was a promise that Booth had kept. _More than once_, she thought ironically. Momentarily distracted, as she zoned out for a few seconds, lost in her own thoughts, Brennan didn't realize that Booth had finally chosen that particular moment to start paying attention to her again.

_Wait…faking it? Ejaculate... What_? Booth thought, Brennan's last words bringing his full focus back to her. "Are you serious?" he asked, his cheeks turning red at the thought.

"Yes, quite," Brennan said. Realizing she was now getting the _exact _reaction she had desired when she first tossed the scenario out there for discussion, she looked over at him and smirked. "You appear to be having some type of physical reaction to the recitation of why I didn't sleep well, Booth. Are you blushing for some specific reason or just in mere principle?"

"Um, no, Bones," he said sheepishly, glancing over at her and then quickly looking away again. He allowed a few seconds to pass between them in silence before he ventured to speak again. "Maybe you didn't hear what you thought you heard, Bones...maybe it was just the TV or something..."

Brennan rolled her eyes at him, clearly annoyed with his logical but obtuse suggestion, and she was becoming more so with each passing moment. "I know what I heard, Booth."

"I'm sure you know what you think you heard, Bones," Booth said in a very conciliatory tone to her. "But, maybe—"

"No," Brennan snapped. "It wasn't the TV. I know it wasn't."

"How do you know that, Bones? Maybe it was one of those Skinemax channels that shows, well, ya know—that kind of stuff late at night. It probably sounded exactly like the real thing," Booth replied, starting to feel a bit uncomfortable at the sudden turn the conversation had taken. _Faking orgasms, ejaculation, and Skinemax_, he thought as he mentally shook his head. _God, she keeps this up, and I'm going to be hard again before we're even halfway to the crime scene whether I jacked off this morning or not_—

"It wasn't the TV," she repeated firmly. "I know it wasn't because I know it was my neighbor upstairs. I've heard this sort of—well, disturbance—from his place before. He's an investment banker, and he's lived in the apartment above me for the past three years. Unless it's the eight-week period each fall when he plays softball for his firm's team, he always goes to happy hour on Tuesday nights and brings home an apparently random female partner with whom he engages in repeated sexual acts."

Brennan was slightly surprised at how easily the fabricated narrative rolled off her tongue. _Hmmmm_. _Okay, so I'm twisting things just a bit. Will hasn't done his Tuesday-night-happy-hour/sexscapades thing since he got married last year. And, he actually didn't do it on Tuesdays, because it was actually Thursdays, but it's not like Booth's ever going to know, so, yeah_. She bit her lip and then decided to embellish the tale a bit more. After all, by that point, if she was going to lie, it was best to be as convincing as possible. "His female partner last night was very loud, much more so than Will, and most likely from her repeated orgasms." _Of course, what I wouldn't give for just one of those right now_. For a moment she smiled and thought wistfully of the night she spent in her partner's bed, and the multiple orgasms she'd enjoyed that night. _Stop that Brennan! Fuck. This is not helping things. Get a grip_.

Shaking her head, she said, "Anyway, the noises were real. They definitely were not coming from a TV. It was real, Booth."

"Hmm," Booth murmured, not entirely convinced. In fact, he was fairly certain she was being at least a bit disingenuous, but he couldn't quite put his finger on what it was. Something about a Tuesday happy hour seemed kind of weird. _Who does Tuesday happy hours, anyway?_ _Isn't that the slowest night of a week for bars? _he wondered.

Then, suddenly, an evil and irresistible question popped into his head. It was out of his mouth before Booth could even consider if asking such a question was a really good idea. "So, uhh, Bones. Did you like listening to it?" he asked her, unsure as soon as the words passed his lips why he would actually ask her _that _particular question, but he had.

In turn, Booth's question caught her by surprise. Arching her eyebrow at him, Brennan asked for clarification. "You mean, did it turn me on?" _Why are you letting him do this, Brennan?_

Laughing slightly, Booth grinned. "Well, yeah." He turned to her as soon as he had merged onto the Southeast Freeway. Brennan was quiet, not having responded to her question, and so, fully committed to getting his answer by that point, he prodded her. "Did it?"

Sighing, Brennan shook her head. _I'm not having this conversation. I'm just not doing it. Not considering what just happened—or, rather, what didn't happen—to me less than an hour ago. No, no. no. _Rolling her eyes as Booth, she shook her head. "No, it didn't," she snapped. "It was extremely irritating. It kept me awake all night. I didn't sleep at all, and I'm exhausted. Which is why—to use one of your favorite turns of phrase—I'm a little 'grumpy' this morning." _Except, of course, that's not at all why_, she thought. _But, we're most definitely not going there_, she told herself.

"Really?" Booth asked, somewhat at a loss to know how someone as sexual as he knew Brennan to be couldn't _not _be affected by a soundtrack like that. "Not even a little?" he asked, glancing back to the road to watch for the signs as the freeway split, needing to make sure he took Pennsylvania Avenue across the John Phillip Sousa Bridge so they could pick up the Anacostia Freeway and head north to Greenbelt Park.

"No, not even a little, Booth," she said, as she brought her coffee to her lips and smiled into the cup. "I…I just wasn't in the mood to be turned on, okay?" _Another blatant lie_, Brennan thought miserably. _God, since when did I ever have to lie this much? I was so in the mood that was—and is—the crux of my goddamn problem. What's happening to me? I just don't—what's happening to me? What's he done to me? What have I let him do to me? _Slowly, ruefully even, Brennan shook her head. She was lost in her own train of thought for a few crucial seconds as Booth questioned her.

"How can you not be in the mood to get turned on?' Booth asked, increasingly more distrustful of Brennan's claims the more they discussed the issue. "That just doesn't make any sense, Bones. Any time can be a good time to get turned on—"

"Oh, really?" she immediately said, annoyance again creeping into her voice. "Any time? Really, Booth? That is just such a _male _thing to say, particularly given the fact that it is a biological truth that men can become sexually aroused within just a few seconds. It's also quite well known that it can take a woman a substantially longer time to reach full arousal so as to be able to achieve a satisfying climax, which is why most women only come when they're masturbating since they're not being rushed by an inconsiderate male lover who's simply ready to ejaculate after one or two token pumps. So, no, it's not always a good time to get turned on, as you said, Booth."

"Bones—" Booth began, suddenly feeling as if he were missing something very important, but not quite sure what as he tried to replay her diatribe in his mind.

Still, since he had apparently hit a nerve, Booth was unable to interrupt as Brennan hadn't apparently finished her rant.

"Then, of course, there's the appropriateness of the surrounding in which one might be potentially 'getting turned on," Brennan said. "So, what about some time like now, Booth? We're on the proverbial clock, en route to a crime scene. Is now a good time to get turned on?"

_With you, in this car, with me, right now? Hell yes, _Booth immediately thought. _That is, it would be a good time from the standpoint of being unbelievably easy_—_since I'm already halfway there_—_but it would be a horribly bad time considering we're on our way to a crime scene to deal with a dead body. _Booth sighed and cracked his neck. _Keep it professional, _he told himself. _Even if she's not, for some strange ass reason. Don't fall for it. Don't let her bait you. Keep it professional. Strictly professional._

He tossed a look of rebuke at her as he said, "You know what I mean, Bones."

"Maybe I don't," Brennan said, not being able to help herself in wanting to watch him squirm. "Maybe you're going to have to explain yourself."

Realizing the challenge for what it was, Booth finally nodded, all thoughts of not allowing himself to be baited or falling for anything Brennan could throw his way or keeping it 'strictly professional' flying right out of his head. "Fine." He took a quick breath and then said, "It was late, you were alone, in bed, probably in one of those silky little numbers." _The kind I fantasize about seeing you in, _he added silently. "So, there wasn't any good reason not to—"

Brennan stared at him, and Booth flushed again as he realized he had verbalized more of his internal monologue than he'd meant to share with her.

Shaking her head, Brennan repeated, "I just wasn't, okay?" She stopped, quickly trying to figure out a way to make this less about her and more about Booth. Quickly, she seized upon an inspired thought as she said, "I thought about going up there and demanding they cease their cacophonous racket, but, in the end, I just decided to report him to the building supervisor for the noise disturbance." Still annoyed with him, she turned to him with a tensely-knit brow and asked, "Have you ever had a neighbor complain, Booth?"

The question took Booth aback. "Wait…what?"

"It's a simple enough question, Booth," she said with a devilish grin. "Have you ever had a neighbor complain about the noise coming from your apartment while you were engaged in sexual intercourse with—?"

He forced a laugh. "Wait," he said. "First off, you seem to be insinuating that I'm like your neighbor, bringing women over to my place for one-night stands all the time. I've never done that," he said firmly.

"Never?" Brennan asked, clearly skeptical.

"Well," Booth said, hedging somewhat underneath the weight of Brennan's glare. "Only a couple of times."

Brennan gave him a look at that admission, and she wondered wondering if she herself qualified as one of the 'couple of times' he mentioned. _If I was one, then who was the other? Or, is he just lying to me? Maybe he really has been having some goddamn revolving door into his bedroom with some troupe of blonde sluts marching in and out every week. Maybe I just broke the pattern with a Viva La Difference Brunette Night. Goddamn it—_

"But still…"

"The question, Booth." Suddenly feeling as if she now had enough justification to legitimize her desire to turn the tables on Booth—both for the thought of the other women he had slept with in the same bed where they'd had sex the previous week _and _for what his counterpart he did to her in his dream—even though rationally, Brennan knew it wasn't actually him, but rather some conceptualized version of him cooked up by her subconscious mind in the middle of deep REM sleep—Brennan pressed him. "Have you ever had a neighbor complain?"

Booth watched her out of the corner of his eye as they drove over the John Phillip Sousa ridge into the eastern half of the District. His mind raced with a dozen competing thoughts, the foremost of which was why on earth she was doing this to him, _again_. Hadn't she had enough after that drive to and from Fairfax the week before? He was really coming to think that he had made a tremendous mistake, letting her into his apartment that night, and doing what they did that night. _Except_, the voice inside reminded him, _that it was the most amazing sexual experience of my life_. He shrugged off that meddlesome voice, wondering if their partnership would ever be the same. Of course, he knew the answer was no, regardless of what happened between them in the future.

"Booth?" Her voice snapped him out of the morass of his thoughts once more, and spurring him to complete honesty for some inane reason.

"Once," he mumbled, looking at her briefly and then away again, reaching for his now barely-warm cup of Dunkin' Donuts coffee. _At least they used real half-and-half,_he thought randomly. He hated that terrible non-dairy crap. "Just once."

Brennan smiled. "I'm sorry, what?" She had heard him perfectly well, but she wanted to make him twist in discomfort, especially after the extremely uncomfortable circumstances that he—or his dream counterpart—had left her in just a half-hour before this commute-from-hell had started.

Booth swallowed. _Why am I even having this conversation with her? _he asked himself. He set his coffee down again, returning it to the cup holder, and then rubbed his eyes.

"There was this one time," he began. "I was living in a different apartment than I do now. It was where I lived when you and I first started working together, before I got the place I've got now."

Brennan's interest was piqued. _He's actually going to tell me_, she thought. _Really? He's really going to be honest? Wow. That's something I hadn't expected. Not from him, to me, of all people. Not about a topic like this_. Deciding to see if her assumption was right, she prompted him. "And? Who was it?"

Looking up at her, Booth shook his head. "It doesn't matter."

"Yes, it does," Brennan replied insistently. "Who was it?"

Shaking his head again, he chuckled softly. "I'm a gentleman, Bones. I've never been the type of guy to kiss and tell—or make her moan and spill the details, if ya know what I mean."

Brennan narrowed her eyes suspiciously, desperate to suddenly know what other woman was special enough to merit such a significant place in Booth's memories. Unsure where to start, Brennan latched onto the first of Booth's exes that she could think of to toss out as a guess in hopes of prompting him, even though she knew the one she had thought of was wrong. _There was no way it could be her_, Brennan thought, as soon as she opened her mouth to speak. _Definitely not. But, still, we need to start somewhere, so—_

"It was Tessa, wasn't it? She certainly seems like the type that would get off on yelling like that. Anthropologically, those individuals who have less dominant genetic traits, as evidenced by a lack of melanin in their pigmentation, compensate in social interactions by drawing attention to themselves in other ways."

At this, Booth laughed out loud. "It wasn't Tessa." He stopped, considered a brief memory that pissed Brennan off even more, if that were possible in that moment, as she saw him recall whatever moment he was thinking of, and then said vaguely, "Tessa was many things, but she wasn't as bossy in bed as you probably think she was. In fact, she was quite the opposite, actually."

Biting her lip to keep from letting her anger flare, Brennan forced herself to keep the goal in mind—determining the identity of which other woman Booth seemed to hold in such high esteem regarding his pantheon of sexual experiences. She took a few seconds and then said, "Then, if it wasn't Tessa, I know it wasn't Cam. Cam's far too stolid a personality to shoot her mouth off like that, in bed or not."

Shaking his head slightly, Booth confirmed, "Nope, it wasn't Cam."

"Then, unless you're hiding some grand conquest of yours, that means it has to have been—" Brennan stopped as she suddenly came to the realization of the mystery woman's identity, and with it, the reason why Booth was guarded about it. "Oh—"

Her exclamation made Booth realize she had guessed even before she spoke again.

"It was Rebecca, then, wasn't it?"

Booth wondered why she was doing this. Why did his partner continue to bring up sex without actually addressing the truly obvious—the fact that _they_ had had sex, and that they had never actually addressed the issue that loomed so large between them?. He was sure she was playing him, trying to mess with him, and it pissed him off a little. Turnabout being fair play, Booth decided that, if she wanted to mess with him, then it was time to mess with her a little. _Fine, Bones. You want it, you got it_.

Taking a breath, Booth prepped himself to take the shot. _Make it count_, he told himself. "Fine, you're right. It was Rebecca. It was…I don't know, a while after Rebecca and I had broken up," he explained, "We'd been officially kaput for a while. We weren't together when it happened, but it wasn't a clean break. It took a long time for us to sort through what had happened, I guess, because neither one of us made things easy. And, so anyway, we had this weird period in the year or two after Parker was born, where we had this really vicious cycle of amazing breakup and makeup sex."

He glanced over at his partner, unsure whether she was familiar with such terms. She said nothing but raised her eyebrows, encouraging him to continue.

"Yeah, I know. It was kind of unhealthy." He shrugged, but smirked as he thought about the sex itself. "It was really raw, and really intense. Kind of a mindfuck, really. Anyway, so one night she was over at my place—I guess Parker was maybe two years old at the time—and we had been arguing about something having to do with Parker. Visitation, I think. That was always the issue. Still is, really. But, anyway—we got into this major pissing match, I mean a really, really huge argument, and she started screaming at me, and—"

Brennan interrupted him. "Booth, that's not what I was talking about," she said, realizing as soon as she said it that she could hear something—disappointment, maybe—in the tone of her voice. If she could hear it, she knew he could, too.

He grinned and rolled his eyes. "Yeah, I know what you asked, and if you'd shut up for a minute, I'll get there. Okay? I'm going to answer your damn question." He frowned at her. "The story's important sometimes, Bones. It's not just about where you end up, but how you end up getting there that's just as important, sometimes even more so. It's not just the outcome—but the story itself. You know, the narrative."

"Okay," she said tersely as she took another sip of her coffee. She was irritated with herself at the direction the conversation had taken, and the fact that it had taken that direction on her account, but she resigned herself to what she was going to have to endure to get the answer she wanted_. Fine. Here goes another tale of Booth and one of his blonde exes_, she frowned. _Always the blondes_.

"So, anyway," Booth continued, his voice still a little strained at having been interrupted. "So Rebecca and I are having this knock down, drag out fight, getting really into each other's faces, and she's screaming, and I'm yelling, and all of a sudden our faces are this close, you know…"

He held his hand up and used his thumb and forefinger to indicate how close. Brennan didn't have to imagine it considering the fact that she had been that close to him, in a very similar state to the one she imagined he described, but for a week ago. Forcing herself not to frown, Brennan wondered if it was always standard procedure for Booth to end up fucking a woman who challenged his masculinity in such a way. _Once with Rebecca is just a potential random occurrence. However, twice, the second time being with me, would make it almost a pattern_, she mused.

Sensing that he was losing Brennan, Booth decided to give her an image that she couldn't zone out on and ignore. "So, we're nose-to-nose, right? Then, one of us moved just a bit, and I dunno how in the hell it happened. But, somehow, we start kissing, and—well, not that it's really important, but Rebecca always kinda went a little nuts anyway when we'd be making out and I'd do this one thing with my tongue—"

As he had anticipated, _that _image did get Brennan's attention. She couldn't help herself as she let out a sharp _pfffft_ sound, but didn't follow it up with the kind of mouthy response he had expected from her. He smirked as her response, while nonverbal, confirmed that she had walked right into the trap he'd laid for her, and he decided to push her buttons just a bit more, suddenly finding himself enjoying the fun of watching her react. Booth felt a little guilty torturing her this way—but only a little. _Well, maybe more than a little,_he told himself. A part of him wanted to rattle her cage enough to get her to end the stalemate that had driven him mad for the better part of a week.

"So, anyway, one thing leads to another, right? And we end literally tearing each other's clothes off, buttons popping, clothes being ripped—I actually ended up tearing the seam on this fancy push-up bra she had just bought from Victoria's Secret that was, apparently, kind of expensive. It was this little red lacy number that really looked great on her. Did the whole 'lifts and separates' thing to perfection, which is why I think Becks was so pissed that I fucked it up. She made me pay for her to get a new one afterwards, and I had no damn clue that bras could cost over forty bucks! But, anyway, we finally ended up in bed, screwing like certifiable nymphomaniacs. And, I guess it was partly the really amped emotional intensity of it all, and, well—"

He arched an eyebrow and smirked at Brennan.

"I guess maybe I was just in really top form that day, because, you know…"

Booth watched for her reaction, but she sat there, stony-faced, only a slight glimmer of something—interest, maybe or, _even better,_ he thought, maybe a touch of _jealousy_—twinkling in her eyes.

"But, when she finally got there, she screamed, way louder than she ever had before. And, obviously, we'd had sex plenty of times before that, so I feel pretty confident in saying that I know that things were different that one time. She kept screaming my name over and over again. 'Seeley. Seeley. _Seeley.'_"

He stopped, unintentionally lost in the memory for a minute as he thought about how the fire between him and Rebecca had flickered for a couple of years before finally flaming out. He thought about all the times she had screamed his name before realizing how he much preferred hearing the name _Booth _moaned as opposed to _Seeley_. He closed his eyes and shook his head softly as he silently hoped he would have the chance to hear moans of _Booth _sound again from Brennan's lips.

Shaking his head, he forced himself to concentrate. _Now is not the time to get distracted, Booth. Remember, one shot. Make it count_. "Anyway, it was insane, and she was really, really loud. I mean, _really _loud." A blush came to Booth's cheeks as he thought about it again, and at the notion that he was actually relating this whole story to his partner. His world had truly taken a turn for the weird.

Brennan cocked her head and stared at him expectantly. She finally said her first words in several minutes, and their simplicity was a bit of a let down to Booth. "And, so what?" she asked. "What's the big deal?"

_He shoots, and he misses, _Booth thought miserably, not understanding how Brennan could be so blasé after a story like that. _Shot blocked by Bones. Fuck_—

He laughed uncomfortably, scrambling to recover. "So, we finished, and it was crazy awkward, right?"

Brennan just looked at him blankly.

Booth sighed, recognizing defeat when he saw it. Wanting to finish the story as quickly as possible, his idea of playing with Brennan suddenly gone, he said, "Rebecca got dressed—well, as best she could, since her blouse had a few buttons missing—oops, right? I walked her to the door as she was leaving. I opened the door to let her out, and my next door neighbor to the right—the one whose unit was on the other side of my bedroom wall—she was standing right there on my doorstep with her hand raised, about ready to ring my doorbell, just as Rebecca was walking out. Becks was absolutely mortified. I watched her walk away, down the hall, doing the walk of shame, and then realized my neighbor was still standing there in front of me. She had this very disapproving look on her face."

Finally, at that part, Brennan felt a wave of warmth flow through her. She smirked at that imagery, a little part of her pleased to hear that one of Booth's blondes had been humiliated a little. She then suddenly chastised herself as she wondered, _Wait…Why am I acting this way? What's the big deal? Why do I even care? _Not bothering to answer those questions, a louder voice in her head took control of her contribution to the conversation. "So, what did she say?" she asked him.

Booth sighed at the memory and laughed nervously, feeling the warmth in his cheeks as he remembered. "She started to lecture me. 'Mr. Booth,' you know, 'I understand that what you do in the privacy of your own home is your business,' she said. 'But when it's so loud that I can't hear Jay Leno's monologue even though I have the volume turned all the way up, it's no longer your business.' I just about died. She started to say, 'I would appreciate—' but I cut her off. Whatever she was going to say, I definitely didn't want to hear it. So I told her, 'I'm sorry, and it won't happen again.' And, she looked at me—" He narrowed his eyes in imitation of his neighbor's disapproving look. "And she said, 'I doubt that.' And, then she walked back into her apartment."

Brennan tilted her head at him and then asked, "Are you serious?"

"Could I make that kind of stuff up?" Booth replied. He was silent for a few seconds, and then added in a softer voice, "I almost died, Bones. I wanted to shrivel up and disappear. I was so embarrassed."

Brennan considered his words and then said matter-of-factly, "Well, if it had been me, and it had been Mrs. Ross who had seen or heard me, I wouldn't have been embarrassed." She shrugged, bringing her coffee once more to her lips as she smiled, awaiting Booth's reaction.

Booth was rattled by her first blatant reference to their encounter the previous week. His head snapped and he looked at her, despite the fact he was trying to merge the SUV onto the Anacostia Freeway at that particular moment. Fortunately, the roads were still relatively empty of traffic, with seemingly as few tankers and semis on the road as there were passenger cars at that hour.

Finally, Booth said, "Yeah, well, that's you, Bones. Not everyone's like you."

"That's true," Brennan agreed instantly with a pert nod. "I'm quite extraordinary."

"Or, maybe it's just because you're shameless, Bones," he said.

"That's true," she said. "Shame is a response to society's arbitrary and archaic socio-sexual mores." She paused for a beat, letting Booth hang on her words. "I don't feel shame. If someone hears me having sex, well—fine. I don't care. It doesn't bother me at all."

Booth cocked an eyebrow. "Okay, so you're saying that you don't care if people hear _you_ having sex, moaning and screaming _your_ lover's name, but it bothers you to hear _other people_ having sex, moaning and screaming _their _lover's name." He clicked off the turn signal after passing the truck in the right lane, then looked over at her. "You don't see anything a little inconsistent about that, Bones?"

"No," Brennan responded quickly. "Not at all. Why should I?"

"_Riiiighht_," he snorted, clicking the turn signal on again as he passed a slow-moving box truck on the right. _If I didn't know better, Bones, I'd say 'inconsistent' was your middle name._Suddenly, annoyed at his close proximity to Brennan, Booth moved quickly to find a distraction, any distraction from the awkward lull their conversation had reached. "What a dick," he said, nodded at the truck that had impaired their vehicle's momentum. "Jagoff shouldn't be in the left hand lane," he muttered, the change in the tone of his voice catching her attention.

Looking over, Brennan said, "Now, what's got you so grumpy?"

"Grumpy?" he grunted. "Me? You think I'm the grumpy one?"

She nodded.

Booth shook his head. "Nope, I'm not the grumpy one, Bones. I got a perfectly sound six hours of sleep last night, despite the early morning wake-up call from dispatch. No grumpiness here, baby." He smiled. "Not now that I've had my morning cup of joe."

"Don't call me 'baby,'" Brennan immediately corrected him, more out of habit than conscious thought. "You know I hate it when you do that."

"Uh-huh," he said, then fell silent again as he moved the Tahoe through early morning truck traffic towards the D.C. border with Maryland so they could continue up the B-W Parkway towards the Greenbelt exit.

"I'm serious, Booth," Brennan said. "I've already had all the inconsiderate men I need making my life miserable. I don't need you adding to it."

At her words, and sharp tone of voice, an odd feeling began to gnaw at the back of his mind. Booth recalled how, approximately a week before, at almost exactly this same time as they traveled to almost the exact same place, Brennan had started the events that culminated in their trip down the rabbit hole with the hostile attitude she showed the Maryland State Troopers. _I'm not doing that again_, he thought. _I don't know why she's acting so damn weird, but for whatever reason, it appears she's decided to go all squirrelly again. But we're not having a repeat of last week. She's not going to do that to me again. Not after last Wednesday. It's just not happening._

Looking over at her, Brennan had folded her arms and seemed to occupy herself by staring out the SUV's passenger side window. And, while Seeley Booth was generally not one for enjoying long stretches of silence in the car, this time, that morning, he was suddenly grateful that neither of them spoke another word between the U.S. 50 interchange and when they pulled up alongside the gaggle of other flashing blue and red lights along the muddy banks of Still Creek.

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><p><em>Oh, dear. There they go again.<br>_

_Of course, there's more fun yet to come.  
>(Wait...did she actually say "come"?)<br>_

_Folks, let me be absolutely clear:  
>Lesera128 and I <strong>live<strong> for reader reviews.  
>We love to hear what people think of our work.<br>_

_More reviews = happier writers = more updates._

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>Click that little review button down there.<em>

_Yep, that's the one._


	8. Chapter 8: A Bog Body at the Greenbelt

**Cognitive Dissonance  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128**  
><strong>**Rated: **M**  
><strong>**Disclaimer: **We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

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><p><em>Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this crazy little fic so far. If you've been lurking (reading but not reviewing—and we know there are a lot of you out there doing that, based on the story stats), please take a moment, step out of the shadows and tell us what you think. <em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 8 - A Bog Body at the Greenbelt<strong>

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><p>When they arrived at Greenbelt Park, Booth pulled off the main park road onto an unpaved service road—marked by a sign with the typical "Official Use Only" warning—normally used only by park rangers. Following the directions the lead FBI tech had texted to him, he continued along the dirt road for a couple of minutes, the suspension of the SUV making the ride to the crime scene fairly smooth, although they felt a small jerking motion as the the truck slowly rumbled over the uneven dirt and gravel road that was still damp from the prior evening's rainstorms.<p>

Perhaps a more jarring ride would've been a more appropriate experience to complete their journey to the site given the tension that had settled between them since a stony silence had befallen them after Brennan's offhand comment—one that had been highly loaded with meaning—about "inconsiderate men" who made her life "miserable." The pair maintained that uncomfortable silence between them: Brennan because she didn't want to hear another word from Booth about his many and varied sexual experiences with pigmentation-impaired sexual goddesses, and Booth because he didn't want to say something that might result in the two of them arriving at the scene in the middle of a full-blown argument. The only thing they heard was the sound of their breathing and the Tahoe's aggressive tire tread grinding over the lightly graveled dirt road as they inched closer and closer to their final destination.

As they reached the end of the bumpy, unpaved service road, there was no need for Booth to double-check his GPS, because it was obvious when they finally arrived at their intended destination. A half-dozen pickup trucks and SUVs, representing the U.S. Park Police and the FBI, all of them with lightbars flashing in a dizzying array of blue and red, plus forensics vans from the FBI and the Jeffersonian, all stood waiting to greet them. Ever worried about keeping the SUV in as pristine a condition as possible—both for aesthetic reasons and because he didn't need to get his ass chewed for improper care and maintenance of federal property—Booth parked the Tahoe a few feet way from a Park Police truck where it would be least likely to get scratched or dinged by another vehicle. Unbuckling his seatbelt, he slowly opened the door and stepped out. As soon as his feet hit the wet, leaf-covered ground, Booth knew this was going to be a messy scene. Sometimes the scenes were clean, sometimes dusty, and sometimes very, very messy. When Booth looked toward the ravine that was illuminated in the half-light of dawn by a rack of halogen spotlights, he knew this was going to be one of those ones that fell into the latter category—messy, and most likely very, _very _messy. He glanced down at his feet and was thankful that he had opted that morning for his waterproof Gore-Tex hiking boots with the toothy Vibram outsoles when he had dressed quickly before leaving to hit D&D on his way to pick Brennan up at her apartment..

Brennan got out of the SUV and made a slight face as she felt her feet flex against the squishy ground surface. Her face morphed into a full grimace when the squelching sound made by the gumboots of her standard Jeffersonian field uniform reached her ears. Other sensory data quickly supplemented the information provided by her feet's tactile assessment of the ground and processed by her ears. A plethora of pungent aromas of the wet soil composition assaulted her as soon as she got out of the car, the odd effluxes tickling her nose. However, despite the noxious odor of their latest crime scene set as it was in nature's great outdoors, Brennan was happy at the cumulative result the new scents had wrought in her mind. She felt grateful as the scents of the SUV—Dunkin' Donuts coffee and a range of smells that she mentally filed away under the collective label of 'Booth'—were overwhelmed by the combined odors of standing water, sulfur, and some type of geophysical muck that made her feel particularly grateful for the shoes she wore that day.

Looking over at the other side of the SUV as she grabbed her gear, Brennan frowned when she thought Booth was dawdling in getting out of the car. Noticing he seemed to be occupied with something he saw on the ground near the driver's side, she took a moment to indulge herself with a couple of deep, cleansing breaths despite the presence of the strong and sharp scents of the parkland.

_This is so not how I pictured this morning going_, Brennan thought with a quiet sigh. _I don't know how I exactly anticipated my morning proceeding when I went to bed last night_—_perhaps getting a restful few hours of sleep before I woke up, checking my email before breakfast, having enough time to get dressed, including blow drying all of my hair so that none of it was still damp, and stopping to grab a latte at that Starbucks on the corner of Constitution and 7th_—_yes, maybe something like that. But, however it went, I know I feel fairly confident that I never, ever anticipated the possibility of being jerked awake by Booth from an extremely deep REM sleep just before I had what was probably going to be one of the best goddamn orgasms of my life_—_only to be denied at the last second by Booth's horrible timing. _Brennan stopped, forced herself to take another breath to keep her frustration and growing irritation in check.

However, when Brennan's tongue skimmed the roof of her mouth, she felt the burn from the sip of hot coffee she had taken just before Booth had began his impromptu sexual confession about Rebecca. The image of Booth kissing his ex prevented Brennan from achieving her goal of staying calm and rational as she thought back to his infuriating boast of that "one thing" he could "do with his tongue" that drove Rebecca wild _after _he'd already torn her bra off. Clenching her fists, Brennan pursed her lips as she thought, _Yes. This is definitely not the series of events I foresaw taking place when I went to sleep last night because, after everything he did that was bad enough with the rotten timing of his text messages, to top it all off, injury was added to insult since I had to be subjected to Booth's impromptu decision to regale me with an idealized recitation of one of his sexual escapades with one of his famous blonde cadres. _

Glancing over at the other side of the SUV, Brennan shook her head, but remained quiet as she thought miserably about her circumstances. _This is not fair. So not fair. I don't want to be here, I don't want to be near Booth, and God help the next person—metaphorically speaking—who so much as looks at me the wrong way. I think I've had just about all I can take today. That's probably not good since it's not even 7:30 in the morning yet, but, oh well. I know my limits, and it may not be a good thing since it's only an hour into my work day, but I'm just about there._

Realizing she was becoming so frustrated that she wouldn't be in a focused enough mindset to be able to do what she needed to do in the context of the crime scene evaluation—particularly since she was standing in one place too long without anything, or anyone, to distract her—Brennan's frown deepened as she called out to Booth. "Are you coming?" she asked as she finally walked around to his side of the SUV and adjusted her bag over her shoulder. Giving him a quizzical look as he looked up from his boots and met her gaze, Brennan inclined her head in the direction of the steady flow of people that had seemed to have congregated about a hundred meters away. "I'm ready to get to work if you are."

Booth eyed her for a moment, noting the crisp edge in her tone, but didn't comment on it. Instead, he nodded before he punctuated his action with a verbal confirmation. "Yeah," he said, slamming the door and walking around the back of the Tahoe towards the edge of the ravine. He heard voices, including Camille Saroyan's and Jack Hodgins', though he could not see them from the vantage point afforded to them by their approach. Brennan again adjusted her bag over her shoulder and began to move quickly towards the ravine, forcing Booth, despite his longer legs, to have to jog a few strides to catch up with her.

"Bones, wait up—" Booth blurted out.

"Can't," Brennan said, tossing the words over her shoulder. "There's no telling how long everyone's already been here—and while I do have some confidence in Dr. Saroyan and Dr. Hodgins' skills as employees of the Jeffersonian—it's quite possible your FBI techs or some of the other non-specialized personnel have already compromised the remains, Booth. We're late, and we need to do whatever we have to do to catch up—"

Looking up at Brennan to keep track of her movements so he could match her pace, Booth grunted as he stumbled when he didn't see a loose rock and stepped on it. Throwing both his arms out to steady his balance, the delay was no more than a few seconds, but enough to let Brennan disappear from his sight. Forced to rely on listening to see where she had disappeared to, Booth quickly darted off after her. However, he needn't have worried as Brennan had stopped just a short distance away from him as she stopped at the crest of the incline which they had begun to traverse.

"Bones, you know I really hate it when you do that—"

"Oh," he heard her say as she looked down at the body from the edge of the ravine. Her eyes darted back and forth for a few seconds before she nodded to herself an resumed her movements.

"Huh?" Booth said as he saw what his partner was referring to just before she moved towards the sloped cut that provided the only convenient way to descend to the creekbed. "Damn it, Bones. Wait up!" he said as he scrambled down the slippery, steeply graded slope, this time nearly falling on his ass as his haste betrayed his center of gravity. "Aw, _shit_," he hissed, catching himself in time to avoid landing in the mud. He breathed a sigh of relief, knowing that the last thing he wanted to do was dirty his newest pair of Levis ten minutes into what promised to be a very long day in the field.

Brennan turned around and shot him a look of annoyance, but said nothing as she waited for him to get his balance and catch up to her. A minute later, the pair were hiking towards the hub of the morning's activities. Brennan nodded when she saw Cam and Hodgins already hard at work on the remains.

The telltale and unmistakable sounds of the duo had revealed their arrival long before any of the other Jeffersonian team members actually saw them. However, as Brennan's light footfall, and Booth's heavier steps approached, Cam looked up. "Dr. Brennan," she said by way of greeting. Then, she quickly added, "Booth," as she saw him come into view a few seconds after Brennan's appearance and returned her attention back to the body in front of her.

A human skeleton lay on its left side facing a creek, partially buried in thick, dense mud at the base of the ravine's steep six foot wall, eight or nine feet away from the edge of the shallow, slow-moving stream.

Booth eyed it with a clearly evident look of distaste on his face. "So, what do we got?" he eventually asked, unzipping his black ballistic nylon FBI jacket and pulling his pen and a short stack of 3x5 index cards from his pocket. Brennan glanced over at him out of the corner of her eye and noticed the brown leather shoulder holster he wore over his dark blue button-down shirt. _Oh, fuck, _she groaned silently. _The shoulder holster. Shit. Not the shoulder holster. _She felt a flutter in her stomach as he hooked his thumb under one of his belt loops and shifted his weight onto one hip. She recalled watching her partner standing behind the firing line at the Hoover gun range, and how sinewy his biceps and forearms looked when he held a pistol in his veiny hands, before she caught herself. She blinked away the distracting thought and squatted down next to Jack Hodgins.

Booth watched with a knowing smile as Brennan knelt down next to the remains, completely enthralled by the bones now in front of her. He imagined that this is what Brennan must've looked like on Christmas morning when she was a little girl. He visualized her waking up, wiping the sleep from her pale eyes, padding down the stairs to the Christmas tree and looking on in excited anticipation of all the wonderful toys Santa had brought for her. The thought brought an image of Parker to his mind as he recalled how much his son had loved the new baseball bat and glove that Santa had brought for him. He tried to think of what would've been the equivalent for Brennan at that age. _Not Barbie dolls or Cabbage Patch kids or EZ Bake Ovens or Snoopy Sno Cone makers_, Booth thought with a depressed grimace. _She was probably even a squint in utero, so...puzzles and books, probably. A globe or a model, maybe? A Mr. Know-them-Bones skeleton, maybe? Yeah, I could see that. Bones getting excited over a set of bones, even on Christmas morning. Hmmm... _

Although Booth couldn't understand why such boring ass things brought such joy and excitement to Brennan, he still admired and appreciated the response that such things evoked in her. And, perhaps echoing that emotional childhood response, Booth loved this part of the case—watching her take a quick look over the body and, in a matter of seconds, begin to pluck identifying details of the person seemingly out of thin air. Though he had seen her do this a hundred times before, he never, _ever _tired of watching her do it. In that moment, he knew the reason why he loved seeing her 'do her bones thing' was because it was the closest he had ever seen her to pure and unadulterated, unfettered, passionate emotional release—

_Well,_ Booth suddenly stopped himself. _That is, at least it used to be the closest I ever saw her to being like that before last week. Hmmmmm._

Meanwhile, completely oblivious to the fact that Booth was studying her so intently, Brennan retrieved a pair of nitrile gloves from her pocket and snapped them on as she turned her head to one side, surveying the body with a critical eye as she leaned down to get a closer look.

"Female, late teens to early twenties," she said, drawing a gloved finger along the decedent's right iliac crest and down towards the sacrum. She frowned for a moment, her brain processing the data she was gathering as she studied the body, and then nodded, her decision made as she spoke. "It's hard to tell without seeing the whole pelvis, but from what I can see, it appears she's never given birth." She tapped her finger on the mud material encasing the submerged half of the body and noted how firm it was.

"So, is it just me, or does she look like she's really packed in there?" Booth observed. "Any ideas how long has she been there?"

"This is interesting," Brennan said, ignoring his question as her brow furrowed in contemplation. She glanced over at Hodgins who had begun clearing the mud away from a portion of the remains, sampling the surrounding material as he went.

Not happy to be ignored, but too curious not to know what Brennan found so interesting, Booth asked, "What?"

Brennan pursed her lips as she studied the array of human remains before her. "The portion of the remains that are buried in the mud did not suffer the effects of decomposition the way the exposed portion has," she explained.

"It's not mud," Hodgins suddenly grumbled. Booth stared at him, and the entomologist said with a flat tone, "It's humus."

"Hummus?" Booth said with an arched eyebrow. "I think I tried that at a Greek restaurant once, but I didn't really like it. It was rather bland, and it tasted too healthy."

"Not _hummus_, Booth," Brennan corrected him, rolling her eyes at what she thought to be a fairly lame quip, even for her partner. "Hummus is a Mediterranean food made of ground chickpeas, various spices, tahini paste, and olive oil, usually served with flat bread. If it's fried, it's known as falafel." She paused and then pointed at the dark organic material in front of her. "This, however, is _humus_."

The agent arched an eyebrow and exchanged a brief glance with Cam before turning to Hodgins. "What's that?"

Hodgins' face brightened at the opportunity to explain the difference between mud and humus and his tone grew slightly excited as he got the opportunity to explain. "Humus is decayed organic matter—typically leaves and other plant material—that has reached a mature state of decomposition and a point of chemical equilibrium such that it is no longer subject to continued decomposition."

Booth didn't even bother to ask the scientist for clarification, but looked straight to Cam for help. "What?"

"Think of peat," she said simply. "Except wetter...and a lot denser."

Booth nodded and took a few steps around so he could get a closer look at the better-preserved portion of the remains that Hodgins had revealed with the careful use of a small Marshalltown wooden handled-trowel—the only type of trowel that any anthropologist and/or archaeologist who was worth their salt knew to take into the field—a hand pick, and a stiff brush. The skin and flesh appeared dark, almost the color of over-steeped tea, and to Booth's eye, there was no obvious insect activity.

"No bugs?" Booth asked. "No maggots?" _Not that I'm complaining here,_ he thought. _I can always do without the creepy, crawly maggots._

"It's too soon to know that for sure," Cam said. "We'll need to free the body from this muck before we can see what we actually have. But, from what we can tell, the muck seems to have retarded insect activity as well as microbial activity."

"It's not muck," Hodgins corrected, filling a small glass jar with a soil sample. "It's humus."

"Right," Booth said. "Got that part." He turned and looked over at the forensic pathologist. who was watching the exchange with a lightly amused smile on her face. Booth frowned at her slightly—as if to say _it's not funny when you indulge the squints, Cam_—before he asked, "Cam, is there enough left of her to do your thing—tox screen, DNA and so forth?"

"I'm not sure yet," Cam answered honestly.

Brennan, not pleased at being ignored but also annoyed that she couldn't concentrate when Booth was hoovering so close by, shifted her stance as she squatted next to the remains. Sensing his presence as he instinctively gravitated towards her person, and unintentionally blocked her sunlight as his shadow was cast over the area where she worked, Brennan said, "Booth."

"Yeah, Bones?"

"You're in my light," Brennan muttered.

Looking at the ground and seeing his shadow, Booth quickly moved and apologized sheepishly. "Sorry there, Bones."

Glancing up at him, Brennan muttered, "You know, if you would just give us a chance to do our jobs, we might be in a position to give you a more reliable estimate of what we may or may not be able to determine from these remains after we free them from the soil."

Booth raised his hands in a defensive gesture and took a couple of steps back. "Okay, okay," he said. "I get it. I'll scram for a bit, and let you squints do your squint thing."

"Thank you," Brennan said, the relief clearly evident in her voice. "That's all I ask," she said as she returned her focus to the remains.

Surveying the scene, Booth was about to head over to touch base with the other Special Agent on scene, when another person interrupted his plan as he approach with a hail. "Agent Booth?"

A Park Police sergeant in a dark green utilities approached Booth with a firm nod. "Sergeant John McNamara, U.S. Park Police," he said, extending his hand.

"Special Agent Seeley Booth, FBI," Booth said, giving him a strong handshake. "Who found her?" he asked.

"Her?" McNamara asked with surprise. "How do you know that already?"

Booth grinned, always pleased to show off his partner's impressive capabilities to other agencies. "Dr. Brennan here has already confirmed that the decedent is female, late teens or early twenties."

"Wow," McNamara said, flashing his eyebrows and nodding in approval. "She's good, isn't she?"

Brennan glanced over her shoulder, giving the Park Police officer a narrow-eyed look, then turned back to the remains.

"She's very good," Booth said, giving voice to and translating Brennan's look for the benefit of the Park Police officer. "The best."

A smirk flashed across Brennan's lips as she listened to her partner talk to the Park Police officer. Her eyes met Cam's briefly before the latter raised an eyebrow and shook her head in amusement. Brennan returned her stare to the remains, moving her hand along the decedent's exposed right arm. A large pile of wet leaves lay over the end of the forearm. Brennan nudged Hodgins, who looked up and nodded, then she began to gently lift the leaves in handfuls, setting them carefully in a pile to the side.

"Oh, damn," she mumbled.

Booth turned away from McNamara. "What is it, Bones?" he asked. McNamara took a step towards the kneeling forensics and looked down.

Shaking her head, Brennan's lips narrowed into a thin line before she said, "This isn't good." Looking up at Booth, she sighed. "Most of the phalanges on this right hand are missing," she said. "The distal, intermediate, and proximal phalanges are—"

"Her fingers were cut off?" Booth asked, interrupting her.

Brennan sighed again. "I don't feel comfortable with that statement, Booth. It's an unverifiable supposition at this point in time. I can't see any distinct signs of kerf marks on the metacarpals at this stage—"

McNamara turned to Booth with a puzzled look.

"Marks on the bone from a cutting blade," Booth translated, using his hand to imitate the motion of a carving knife.

McNamara mouthed a silent 'oh' and nodded.

Listening to the exchange, Brennan bit back a smirk. _Amateur hour,_Brennan said to herself, remembering a phrase Booth once used in reference to an ignorant local cop. She looked over her shoulder and continued. "They could've been carried off by animal scavengers. Or, washed away by storm runoff, if the state of decomp was advanced enough at the time of the storm."

"So you don't know," Booth offered.

"Isn't that what I just said?" Brennan asked, as she stood and arched her back. Then, placing her hands on her hips, she said, "Booth, can you get your people to search the area to see if they can recover those missing phalanges? Otherwise, we might need to call in a cadaver dog. It's important we find those phalanges."

"My people?" he retorted with a chuckle. Brennan rolled her eyes. Booth grinned. "My people, Bones?" She stared back at him, but didn't say anything. Finally, Booth casually nodded with a bit of a snicker in his voice, "Uh, sure, Bones. I think I can probably make that happen. Right."

Booth smiled with a small shake of his head before he walked away, climbing up the steep, slippery cut and walking over to a group of FBI techs who were standing in a circle, drinking coffee in to-go cups and looking relatively useless as far as he could tell. _My people,_ he smirked grimly. _Yeah, my people. Right._

McNamara, who had apparently followed him, tapped Booth on the shoulder. Booth growled quietly and rolled his shoulder away from the touch with a distinct grunt. He hated when people walked up from behind and touched him without warning. When he was in the Army, and for several years after he got out, he'd have decked somebody for doing that.

"Is it really critical that we find those fingers?" the park cop asked.

Booth frowned. _Amateur hour,_ he muttered to himself. "Dr. Brennan and her team will be able to examine those finger bones and might be able determine if the victim struggled before her death," he explained patiently. "Without them, that's one less clue for us to use in finding what happened to this young woman." _Dr. Brennan and her team, _he smiled. _Of course,_ _Camille would bust a gut if she'd heard me say that, but it doesn't make it any less true._

"Ah," McNamara said, as if Booth had revealed some great and universal truth.

Booth hoped the techs would be able to find the missing fingers, because he sure didn't want to have to call back to the Hoover and ask for a cadaver dog. Whenever he had to call in that kind of favor, it always seemed to come with undesirable strings attached, normally with Deputy Directors on the other ends of them. The canine guys were easy enough to deal with, but the higher-ups always made Booth feel like an ass for calling them out.

Brennan couldn't see Booth over the rise of the ravine above her—not that she wanted to be so obvious in watching him, particularly in front of Cam—but she listened intently as he barked orders to the techs to fan out in a five hundred foot radius around the find site to search for the missing phalanges. She smiled in quiet satisfaction as her partner exercised power over his FBI subordinates, then suddenly wondered, albeit silently, why she found that display of aggressive, dominant behavior so satisfying. She noted the cognitive dissonance between the pleasure it gave her watching him boss other people around—asserting himself as the alpha male—and the fact that she usually wanted to choke him when he tried to pull rank on her in the same fashion. _And, that's why I hate psychology_, Brennan thought to herself. _It makes absolutely no fucking sense. None whatsoever._

Taking a moment to refocus her concentration, Brennan took several breaths before she spoke again. "I have to say," Brennan said to Cam and Hodgins. "I hope I'm not alone in this observation, but these remains remind me of a bog body."

Booth slid down the cut once again, in a more controlled fashion this time, to once again rejoin his squints—whom he considered his people more so than the FBI techs that he'd just sent out to troll for errant finger bones.

"A bog body?" he said with widened eyes, pouting his lip in curiosity.

Hodgins grinned with an excited nod of his head. "Dude, bog bodies are _awesome_. They're these mummies that've been found over the years buried in sphagnum bogs across northern Europe, especially Ireland, Britain, Scandinavia and Germany." Booth glanced from side to side, as if waiting for a non-squinty explanation of the term _sphagnum_—which sounded like some kind of disgusting bodily secretion, like phlegm—but gave up and gestured for Hodgins to continue. "The bodies are preserved, mummified basically, due to the extremely low pH of the bog, which is a form of humus, like we have here."

Booth looked up, trying to remember whether low pH meant acid or alkaline and cursing himself for spending so much time in 11th grade chemistry flirting with that cheerleader Jessica Standish.

"The humic acid has a pH similar to vinegar," Hodgins patiently explained. "This creates an environment inhospitable to the insects and anaerobic bacteria that cause the body the decompose."

Booth grimaced at the thought. "So, these people basically get... pickled?" he asked. "Like some type of Claussen's dill spears?"

"Basically, yes," Brennan answered with a nod. "Over time, the acidic contents of the bog dissolves the calcium phosphate in the bones, so while the bog preserves the body's hair, skin and other soft tissues, the bones in some cases can actually dissolve away."

Hodgins looked up from his jar of humus and smiled enthusiastically. "They found a guy in Denmark who was so well preserved that the farmers who stumbled on him while cutting peat for fuel in the early 1950s actually called the local _gendarmes _because thought they'd found a recent murder victim. Little did they know the guy had actually been dead for 2,300 years."

"Huh," Booth said. Hodgins' story reminded him of the morning, three and a half years earlier, that Cam—then the New York City coroner—had recommended that he consult with a well-known physical anthropologist on a cold case, pointing towards the latter's success in proving that a Stone Age hunter had been murdered. "_How does that help?" _he'd asked her. Little did he know then—

Brennan lifted her head and sat back on her haunches, relaxing a bit as the scientific topic of discussion piqued her interest. "Tollund Man—the name given to that particular bog body—is actually a really amazing specimen, without a doubt the best-preserved Iron Age remains ever found. He's currently on display at the Silkeborg Museum in Denmark. He's so well-preserved that you can see the day-old stubble on his face and the crow's feet at the corner of his eyes." She turned to Cam. "His internal soft tissues were essentially intact so that Danish scientists were able to examine his stomach contents and determine what he ate at his last meal. A similar set of remains were found in Florida in the early 1980s at a place called Windover Pond. But, in that case, the Florida bodies were in some ways even more impressive than Tollund Man."

"And, why's that?" Booth asked, as he got a familiar but ominous feeling in the pit of his stomach. _Oh, God. They're not going to go off into one of those random debates where they start quoting journal citations, and before we know it, four hours have gone by, are they?_"I mean, come on people. Let's focus here." He then thumbed in the direction of their victim, trying to get them to concentrate on the work that was sitting in front of them. "Isn't a dead body a dead body a dead body?"

Brennan shook her head, for once not annoyed by Booth's seeming dismissal of the importance of the archaeological find since it meant she got a chance to explain something that she found quite fascinating. "Not at all, Booth. In the case of Windover, the 168 bodies that were found when a real estate developer began construction of a housing development on the outskirts of Titusville—that's near Kennedy Space Center where I once attended a very intriguing symposium on the short term versus long term effects space travel on osteo-degeneration— in 1982. Construction workers accidentally made a fascinating discovery of what's known as a mortuary pond that dates to the Early Archaic period. Instead of just finding a single bog body like they found on the Jutland Peninsula at a site that was only dated to the fourth century BCE, or Pre-Roman Iron Age, the remains at Windover were built up over a period of time. Archaeologists only excavated approximately one-half the burials of men, women, and children of all ages in order to preserve part of the site for future investigation when technology has significantly progressed beyond what methods they had available to them in 1984 during the preliminary investigations. Moreover, Windover is quite fascinating not only for the grave goods that were recovered, including samples of woven textiles that date from over 6000 years ago, but also because archaeologists were actually able to extract intact brain matter from the skulls that were at least 7500 years old."

"That's quite impressive," Cam said with an appropriate tilt of her head indicating her approval.

"Of course, as in the case of Tollund Man, the Windover scientists also found food stuffs within the stomachs and lower intestines of the bodies they extracted from the muck pond. The majority of the floral and faunal analysis indicated a diet, which consisted of local plant and animal life like snapping turtles and prickly pear cactus," Brennan lectured, having slipped into pure academic mode at being able to speak about one of her favorite recent case studies. Looking over at Hodgins, Brennan asked, "Did you know that Florida has more intact Paleoindian remains than any other site in the United States? I once spoke with one of the principal investigators, or, as they're more commonly known in the field, PIs—"

"No offense, Dr. B.," Hodgins suddenly interrupted Brennan with an annoyed sigh and a wave of his hand . "While I agree that the Windover Pond site is fascinating example of one of the most important bioarchaeological sites found in modern times, I still don't like it when the PI's and every grad student they've ever trained refer to it as a 'muck pond'. And, they aren't the only ones. The excavators at Harr's Island, West William's, and Page Lindson all do the same damn thing. Every public presentation or conference paper they've ever given always uses the term 'muck' or some stupid pun like 'mucking around' to get the audience's attention, and it's just not right. You have no idea how inaccurate the term is from a geological perspective when applied out of the context of—"

"Errr, right," Booth said, his tone of voice probably coming across more dismissively than he actually felt (because, though he wouldn't have admitted it to the squints, that Tollund Man and the people of Windover Pond sounded pretty neat—the kind of thing Parker would find cool, and Booth knew he could and would use the info to impress his very impressionable young son at some point in the very near future). However, Booth knew that if he didn't interrupt the impending great squint debate of the day that they'd never get to the current dead body on which everyone really needed to focus. Nevertheless, none of the squints seemed to notice it, and that merely annoyed Booth further. Hardening his resolve, Booth said, somewhat impatiently as he raised his voice and cut off Hodgins' current rant about silicates and oxygen isotopes. "So, does that mean the, well_, _un-decomposed half of this girl is going to be well-preserved enough to support an autopsy?"

Brennan rolled her eyes, but Cam, reaching her hand out to touch Brennan's forearm, urged her to remain silent.

"Booth," Cam said, her voice edged with mounting frustration she felt toward her old friend. "Look, we don't know that and won't know anything for sure until we pry this poor girl out of this material she's wedged in, okay?"

"And, that's going to happen in between which round of Brain Bowl, Camille?" Booth asked.

She held his gaze for a minute, and then said in a softer tone, "Don't worry. I've got this. Please, Seeley—let us do our job and we'll get the body free, okay? I promise, I won't let them get too far off track." She paused and then Cam said with a smile, "Believe it or not, I think that sometimes the debating actually makes them go faster."

"I find that very hard to believe," Booth said, shooting Cam a look.

"Seeley—" Cam said.

"Fine," Booth said, conceding with a wave of his hands. "I'm going, Camille. Just..."

"Booth—" Cam said, narrowing her eyes, with the warning clearly evident in her voice.

Sighing, Booth shook his head. Pursing his lips, he stared for a minute, but then nodded. "Fine." Feeling thoroughly put in his place, Booth sulked and, standing there for a moment, thought better of it and began walking down the banks of the creek, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his jeans.

He strolled along the rain-soaked bank, listening to the _squish-squish _sound his boots made in the sand as he watched a pair of FBI personnel, a young male crime scene technician in his late twenties and a young female Special Agent around the same age, slowly walk down the banks, scanning the ground for anything that looked bone-like. The _squish-squish _sound of his footsteps reminded him of how he would spend weeks at a time in the field on maneuvers with his Ranger battalion at Fort Benning, trudging through the woods of western Georgia with a hundred-pound rucksack, an M24 sniper rifle, and fifty rounds of 7.62 ammunition. He shrugged away the memory, glad that all of that was behind him and all he had to carry today was his FBI-issue sidearm, a cell phone, a pen, and a stack of loose index cards.

Booth glanced downstream briefly at the pair of techs and checked his watch: _7:33._ He wondered how long it would take for Bones, Cam and Hodgins to pry the victim's half-decomposed body from the mud. _Excuse me_, he reminded himself—_humus_.

"Agent Booth!" Booth stopped and turned around. Sgt. McNamara was approaching him once again, this time accompanied by another man.

When they reached where Booth had stopped, McNamara stopped and introduced the new arrival. "Agent Booth, this is Matt Donlan, one of our park rangers."

Booth acknowledged him with a curt nod.

"He found the body," McNamara finished by way of completing the requisite introductions.

Booth shook the ranger's hand when he extended it jovially to the FBI agent. "Special Agent Booth, FBI." The ranger smiled and tipped his Smokey Bear hat. "What were you doing when you found the remains?" Booth asked.

Donlan explained that he was surveying the length of the ravine for signs of soil erosion after the heavy rains the night before. "As soon as I saw it, I radioed the Park Police," he said. "And they called you guys. It's certainly not the first time we've found someone's body here in the park. You know, if you spend long enough working in the NPS system, you'll see 'em all—vagrants, homeless hippie types, people who go out in the woods to off themselves, so until this morning, I thought I'd seen everyone and everything there was to see—but, as of a few hours ago? Well, let's just say that I now stand shamefully corrected. In the fifteen years I've been with the Park Service, I've never seen anything like this."

Booth narrowed his eyes and thought about the strange way that this decedent's remains were firmly buried in the muddy humus. "How would that girl have gotten wedged in the muck like that?" he asked.

Donlan lifted the brim of his hat and scratched his head. "We've had a couple of hard, heavy rainstorms this last week—most recently last night like I'm sure you all heard. I mean, it's a normal weather pattern for D.C. this time of year."

Booth nodded his agreement and willed Donlan to resume his explanation so they could finish and allow let him get on with making sure the techs and other agents weren't doing anything that might set Brennan off again. _That's one thing I'd really like to avoid today, if at all possible, _Booth thought. _She was a little crankly on the way here, but that's probably just because she's not a morning person even on a good day. So, now she's playing with some bones, in the dirt, talking about pickled brains...yeah. It can still be a good day just as long as she's good. So_—

"It's certainly possible that the storms could have washed soil, rotting leaves and other material into the ravine, covering her up like that," Donlan finished, interrupting Booth's thoughts.

"Hmmm," Booth murmured, refocusing his attention on Donlan's words. "But, would that have made it that packed down, naturally? I mean, the mud back there seemed really dense. Dr. Brennan and her team are having a hell of a time extricating that body from the mud—"

Donlan scratched his goateed chin and then shrugged his shoulders. "Yeah, it's possible—if the, uh, body got covered up with the washout from one storm, and then the rainwater evaporated, leaving the silt behind, then another storm washed some more silt on top of the rest. I guess it could result in the kind of thing we have back there."

Booth looked up and away, then turned back to the ranger and the park cop. "Do you guys maintain weather records for the park?"

"Yes, of course," Donlan said, nodding. "I can get those for you, if you think they'd be of any use. We have to report data like that to NOAA, so it's not a problem."

"Great," Booth said with a nod of agreement. "Yeah, that's be great."

"So, for, what?" Donlan asked. "Say, for the last three months?"

Booth ran his hand through his hair. "Yeah, that'd work," he eventually nodded. "Thanks."

Donlan nodded in response and then turned away with McNamara to complete their new task.

Finally left alone, Booth then turned around and looked back at the find site and watched Brennan, Hodgins, and Cam as they hunched over the remains. This one really did resemble the kind of archaeological dig that his partner had talked about, digging human remains out of large holes with very small tools. He observed her at a distance, squatting next to the remains, and the corners of his lips curled into a smile as he noted how tight her ass looked in that position, despite the utterly sexless androgyny of her jumpsuit. He thought back to that dream he had six days earlier, and that strange Diana Rigg-style sleeveless, skin-tight version of the Jeffersonian jumpsuit she wore, to say nothing of the tight dark blue push-up bra and the matching mesh and lace panties she wore underneath that had hugged her ass so well. _Stop it_, he told himself, biting his lip as he tried to fend away the memory of that dream. _Not now. Later_, he promised himself, clenching his fist and thinking wryly that today might just be another shower-time doubleheader. _Definitely later. But, not now._

Brennan looked up from her work and saw Booth standing there, fifty meters downstream from where she was, talking to the park cop and a forest ranger. She watched him gesture with his large, strong hands as he said something to the other two before they went about their business, leaving him alone, and she thought how she now knew what else those hands could do. A minute or two later, Brennan watched as an FBI tech came up to Booth, and the pair began to chat. He turned around, gesturing further downstream, and her eyes followed the side hem of his blue jeans up the side of his leg and along the curve of his taut ass. _Cut it out, Brennan,_ she told herself. _Snap out of it and get back to work_. _You've got a job to do, so do it_. For a moment she hesitated, the disobedient voice inside her pointing out that, even at this great distance, his ass really _did _look great in dark blue jeans like that. Brennan made a mental note to make certain to suggest that he procure several more pairs like that should the appropriate opportunity to do so present itself. Satisfied that she had let her mind wander off topic for long enough, she finally silenced that voice, and turned her head to return to concentrating on her work, but as she did she found Hodgins staring at her. His glance met hers with an arched eyebrow and a troublesome smirk.

Jack Hodgins had seen Brennan's normally busy, efficient hands stop moving as she gently scraped humus away from the decedent's sixth rib. He looked up to follow her gaze, which fell on the three men standing some distance downstream, and smiled as he realized she was staring at Booth. Remembering the strange scene he'd observed in the nightclub a week before, he stopped his own work for a few seconds to watch her watching Booth. When his own work stopped, even just for four or five seconds, Camille Saroyan looked up and gave Hodgins a narrow-eyed look before turning her head to Brennan. She, too, followed the anthropologist's gaze and smiled knowingly before clearing her throat.

"Dr. Brennan," Cam said. Brennan's head swiveled quickly away from the object of her observations, but she gave no indication that she was embarrassed at having been caught staring at her partner other than a quick blink as her eyes met Cam's. "I think you should take a look at this," the pathologist said, brushing a few stray particles of dried humus away from the portion of the decedent's wrist and forearm.

Brennan narrowed her eyes and pulled a small LED flashlight from her belt. She shined the light on the inside of the now-exposed wrist and sighed. "It appears to be a tattoo," she said.

"A flower of some kind, I think," Cam said.

Hodgins heard the word "flower" and leaned over to take a closer look. "It's a lotus," he said. "_Nelumbo nucifera_—the Indian lotus."

Brennan flashed her eyebrows and nodded. "The lotus is a common symbol in Hindu and Buddhist iconography," she said. "It might be a good indicator of the decedent's identity since the design isn't particularly common in American tattoo iconography."

"Don't you think Booth would want to know about this?" Cam asked her, suppressing a vague smile as she dangled the carrot in front of the forensic anthropologist, unable to help herself as a small voice laughed inside her head with glee. "It might enable the FBI to establish a preliminary identity for the victim."

"Of course," Brennan said, putting her hands on her thighs as she stood up with a quiet grunt and peeled off her nitrile gloves. "I'll go tell him, and I should be able to return promptly, in say, five minutes? So, I'll be right back—"

"It's okay, Dr. Brennan," Cam said before Brennan could finish. "Dr. Hodgins and I will keep working on freeing this body. Go talk to Booth."

Cam and Hodgins watched her walk downstream towards where Booth still stood with the two Park Service officials. When she was safely out of earshot, they turned to each other and laughed.

"Do you think—?" Hodgins asked her with a grin.

Cam shrugged. "I'm not sure, but I'd guess yes." She thought back to the Thursday prior, when her mid-morning call to Dr. Brennan was answered by a husky-voiced, sheepish-sounding Booth. "Do you—?"

Hodgins scratched his rough-bearded chin with the back of his wrist, thinking back to the surreal verbal duel he'd witnessed between Booth and Brennan at the nightclub, and how he'd never seen the space between two people crackle with more sexual energy than it did that night between the two of them. Then again, he thought, he had also never seen the two of them skirmish with the kind of anger and hurtful venom the way he way them do that night. "I don't know," he said truthfully. "I mean, Angie and I have talked about it."

"Well, if Angela said they did, then they probably did," Cam said thoughtfully. "I mean, after all, Angela is Dr. Brennan's best friend."

"Yup," Hodgins said. "But, that's just it. Angela says 'no.'"

"'No?'" Cam said, in complete disbelief. "What do you mean 'no?'"

"Like I just said," Hodgins laughed a bit. "Angie's says no. She said she thinks something happened, but that it wasn't the full blown on-and-on, out-and-out 'sexfest to shatter all orgiastic, polyorgasmic sexfest records.' Yeah, that was how she phrased it."

"You didn't just make that up, did you?" Cam laughed.

"Nope," Hodgins said. "I memorized that baby. When Angie gets inspired with a turn of phrase like that, it's too good not to remember." He stopped and looked up at Cam.

"So, that's what the expert on Dr. B said."

"Right," Cam agreed with a sharp nod.

Hodgins looked at her, letting a few seconds of silence fall between them before he prompted, "So, what's the expert on Booth say?"

"Like I said, I'm not going into specifics, but let's just say I know Seeley Booth very, very well, and with all due respect to Angela, something's going on there. I just can't figure out what exactly," Cam admitted.

"The angry tension right?" Hodgins said.

Nodding, Cam said, "Among other things, yeah. And—"

"And?" Hodgins asked.

"Well, between you and me," Cam said with a conspiratorial lilt to her voice, "I can't figure out if things finally popped like we always thought they would why—despite each of their admirable work ethics— the two of them would be traipsing around a crime scene like this instead of coming up with some plausible excuse to go into quarantine so the two of them wouldn't have to hide the fact they couldn't keep their hands off of each other. So, like I said, I don't know what happened, but something's _definitely _going on there."

"Yup," Hodgins agreed. "I totally agree. You're right. If nothing else, I'm so totally with you on that one."

Each of them shook their heads slightly, realizing that all that needed to be said had been verbalized, and so returned to their labors, picking the darkened flesh of the deceased free from the hard-packed organic matrix that was, until that morning, her unmarked grave.

* * *

><p><em>Got another dead body to deal with,<br>and everyone's on their best behavior so far._

_Of course, there's more fun yet to come._

_(Wait...did she actually say "come"?)  
><em>

_Folks, let me be absolutely clear:  
>Lesera128 and I <strong>live<strong> for reader reviews.  
>We love to hear what people think of our work.<br>_

_More reviews = happier writers = more updates._

_You know what to do, people.  
>Click that little review button down there.<em>

_Yep, that's the one._


	9. Chapter 9: Complex Social Interactions

**Cognitive Dissonance  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128**  
><strong>**Rated: **M**  
><strong>**Disclaimer: **We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

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><p><em><strong><span>AN:** _

_Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this crazy little fic so far. If you've been lurking (reading but not reviewing—and we know there are a lot of you out there doing that, based on the story stats), please take a moment, step out of the shadows and tell us what you think. We love to hear from first-time reviewers. And when you leave a juicy review, you'll often get a juicy response from one of us. (I'd like to promise a personal response from Booth, but I haven't figured out how to swing that one yet. In the meantime, you're stuck with us.)  
><em>

_**Important Administrative Notice:** We are getting close to the halfway point of this collaborative fic, which means for those of you who read **Costly Signals**, you know that means it's about time for me to hand over the chapter-posting reins to my coauthor, the incomparable **Lesera128**. If you haven't put her on your author alerts, I recommend you do so immediately, if not sooner. Firstly, because she writes awesome stuff in her own right (e.g. "What I Wish I Would've Said" and "Buried With The Bones") and you'd be missing out on some great fanfic if you didn't read her work. Secondly, because once I post Chapter 10, you'll need to be subscribed to her alerts to get notified of further updates, which will appear as Cognitive Dissonance: Part Two, which will contain Chapters 11 through 20 of this fic. Oh, and as you all have probably figured out by now, Chapters 1-10 are all ramping up the action. The resolution/denoument, and what all of you really want to read about, is probably going to be in those last ten chapters. And, believe me, there's lots more left to this fic. CD will end up being roughly the equivalent of a 300-page book in length, and you're only about halfway through it now. You don't want to miss the last half, because we've got all kinds of good stuff saved up for you in the latter half. (And I mean really, really good stuff.) So, before you read further, go ahead and put Lesera128 on your alerts (she appears as the very first reviewer of this fic, in case you're looking for a shortcut to find her profile).  
><em>

_So, without further ado, let's check back in with our crime-fighting heroes at Greenbelt Park...  
><em>

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><p><strong>Chapter 9 - Complex Social Interactions<strong>

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><p>As soon as she had left where Cam and Hodgins were trying to free the remains from where they were encased in their humus prison, Brennan couldn't help but feel the same way she used to feel when she was a little girl. Sometimes, her father would ask her to complete a task when she was younger, and he always made it seem as if she were doing him some great favor by completing what he implied was an unenviable task. She remembered how he'd ask her with a heavy sigh if she would mind terribly helping him to re-alphabetize the books on the lower shelves in his office when they got out of order in the course of normal use. He apologized for making her bend down to reach the books that his 'old aching joints' wouldn't let him reach as he needed to in order to complete the task. However, Brennan delighted in the task, as she always knew that if she were reorganizing the books, she was welcome to flip through them and absorb the writings on everything from physics and organic chemistry to anatomy and physiology. Brennan would toil away, oblivious as her father watched with a pleased glint in his eyes when he saw her lighting up with excitement like a firefly while she soaked in the new knowledge in the course of completing such a mundane task. It pleased her father to be able to indulge Brennan with the opportunity to do something she enjoyed even if there was a bit of nefariousness about the entire situation. It wasn't until much later, when she was older and wiser, that she realized what her father had done. However, from as far as she could tell as she thought over Cam's suggestion that she find Booth to inform him of their latest findings, Brennan couldn't help but feel as if she were sitting on the floor of her father's office, delighting in having access to his books while she did her father a favor.<p>

Shaking off the gnawing feeling, Brennan scanned the horizon, looking a few meters off in the distance to see where Booth might've finally disappeared. It took Brennan a few minutes as she continued to search for her partner. At last, as a group of FBI personnel shifted, as if in a reenactment of the biblical allegory of the parting of the Red Sea, Booth suddenly appeared. Brennan smiled to herself, happy that she had spotted him. Walking towards him with a purposeful step, Brennan called out to get his attention.

"Booth!"

Walking over where her partner stood scribbling on his note cards, not for at least the thousandth time, Brennan reminded herself that she really did need to get Booth a small spiral notebook to keep his notes more organized. While she understood his dislike of traditional drugstore spiral notebooks, she often used small yellow _Rite in the Rain _notebooks in the field. They were popular with archaeologists because of the waterproof paper, stiff plastic yellow cover, and their ability to retain notes despite how hard a beating they took in field conditions. _Booth should appreciate their practical, dare I say tactical, features_? Brennan snickered mentally. _What did he call it once?_ she asked herself. '_High speed, low drag.'_

Hearing Brennan's voice call out to him, Booth looked up, somewhat surprised to see her walking over, but quite pleased that she appeared less hostile than she had been when they arrived at the scene only a short time before. The recent roller coaster of her emotional responses was really starting to exhaust him, but he pushed aside the exhaustion since she seemed to be in a positive frame of mind at the moment—for however long that would last, anyway. And, although he'd never admit it to her, Booth really liked that she was smiling again. He loved that smile.

"What's shaking, Bones?" Booth asked jovially. "You seem in a much better mood than you were when we got here."

"I was unaware that my mood had changed," Brennan lied, as she tilted her head at him. "Perhaps it was just that I needed some time to allow the caffeine from the coffee you brought for me to work its way into my system and stimulate my mental processes." She stopped, paused, and nodded at him as she said, "Thank you for that, by the way. You didn't have to stop and procure coffee for me while obtaining your own beverage. It was quite thoughtful of you."

"Sure—no problem, Bones," Booth said, looking at her with a teasing light still in his eye. "But, I still don't know if it's just the fact you needed coffee."

"Oh, really?" Brennan asked, crossing her arms. "Then, what would you suggest as the explanation behind any alterations in my mood that could be considered as positive if we're using my mindset upon our arrival at the crime scene as the baseline by which we are establishing a negative value?"

Booth blinked, narrowing his eyes as he deciphered her question.

"I think," Booth began with a bit of teasing coming into his voice, "you just needed a bit of recess time to play with some dirty bones, and, hey, now all's right in your world." He stopped and then added with a chuckle, "Bones just needed to play with some new bones, right?"

Brennan stared at him and considered his words. Eventually, the significance of one of his words caught her attention, and she looked to him for clarification. "Wait. Recess from what?"

"You know, Bones," he said with a happy nod of his head. "Recess? Like you used to get in school when it was time to go outside, have some fun, play—"

"I never preferred wasting time outside when staying inside was more conducive to gaining extra time in the library to read, Booth. Unless I was required to participate in some athletic or competitive activity outside, usually my teachers were quite content to let me go to the library to read or sit quietly at my desk to complete my homework when the other children left. But you're correct. I did find such periods of quiet a welcome respite from the excessive onslaught of social malaise I often endured in elementary school."

"Jeez, Bones," Booth said with a shake of his head. "That's depressing."

"What?" Brennan asked, not comprehending the source of the disconcerted look on Booth's face.

"Recess is supposed to be a time when, you know, you go outside and do fun stuff as a reward from the drudgery of being cooped up inside the classroom—or in your case, now, the lab—all day, Bones," Booth said, still slowly shaking his head. "And, you're telling me that you spent all your time indoors...studying?"

"Yes," Brennan said simply. "Learning is quite exhilarating and entertaining—or, if you prefer I use one of your descriptors, quite fun, Booth. And, moreover, if we're to accept the validity of your analogy about this morning's field work being some type of recess, then, by default, it also implies that being in the lab is burdensome. And, since we both know that I love being in the lab, Booth, I'm not comfortable with that assessment. The lab is a wonderful place to spend time, and I know you think I'm just saying this, but I know I would be of the same opinion even if I didn't work there. It's quite a remarkable place, a very stimulating and enjoyable environment in which to spend time, and I consider it very rewarding—"

Waving off her comment, Booth interrupted with a sigh. "Yeah, okay, Bones. I get it. Squints love labs. Gotcha." He paused and then said, "So, did you need me for something, or what, Bones?"

Brennan opened her mouth to answer his question, when she was suddenly interrupted for a second time, but not by Booth.

"Who's this?" Ranger Donlan asked as he approached the pair from where he had been, inspecting some soil erosion downstream of where Booth and Brennan stood. He nodded at Brennan and said, "Good morning, ma'am."

Booth smiled and nodded. "Ranger Donlan, this is my partner," he said, a touch of pride evident in his voice. "Dr. Temperance Brennan of the Jeffersonian." Brennan smiled, noting the lilt in his voice, and extended her hand to the ranger.

"Matt Donlan, National Park Service," he said with a wink and an appreciative nod at Booth before he focused on Brennan, shaking her hand firmly.

Booth noted Donlan's suggestive wink and tried to resist rolling his eyes. _Partners, people,_ he grumbled silently. _Partners. As in, strictly professional. That's all we are, after all, right? I'm her partner, she's my partner. And, that's it. There's nothing more to it than that because there are many different other types of partnerships besides romantic partnerships. Is it so hard to imagine a man and woman working together without them having to be romantically involved?_ _Just because she's my partner doesn't mean that we have to be sexually attracted to each other. I don't think she's as fucking hot as she is just because she's my partner. Hell, I thought that even before we really started working together—actually, from that very first moment I met her. Okay, so she's my partner, and she's hot, and yeah, I'd love to fuck her again in less than two seconds flat if I had the opportunity, but that's not because we work together. They're not mutually exclusive things. She's the best in her field, I'm the best at what I do, so it only makes sense that we work together, regardless of the fact that I'm a man, and she's a woman_—_a beautiful, sexy woman, but just a woman. But that doesn't matter. _He wondered if Donlan was unaccustomed to working with women, given his occupation. _Men and women can work closely without necessarily sleeping together. It's not so strange. Stranger things have happened. I mean, look at us? We worked together for how long—long before we actually slept together, which we've only done once anyway—and we're just partners, right? _Booth found his mind wandering back to that strange dream he had six nights prior, and tried to ignore the tingle at the base of his spine as he remembered how in that dream his partner rode him and—

_Don't go there_, he told himself. _Not now. At home, in the shower—fine. But, not here. Right now, there's work to do, so that's all that matters right now. We're keeping it strictly professional, Booth, remember? _He nodded silently to himself to reaffirm his conviction.

Smiling genially, he looked over at his partner and said, "So, what do you have for me, Bones?" he asked her.

Donlan blinked at Booth's use of the strangely personal and informal nickname to someone as formal as the forensic anthropologist seemed to be. However, the ranger said nothing as he observed the furrowing of Brennan's brow while she processed the Booth's question, tried to think of what to say, and formulated a proper answer in response to the query.

"We found a tattoo on the inside of the victim's wrist," she began slowly. "It's somewhat hard to discern the precise nature of the aesthetic design, given the way the skin and flesh have been darkened by the effects of its exposure to the humic acid, but it appears to be a lotus design, with the flower opened up like this," she said, holding her hand, palm up and using her fingers to simulate the flower's petals.

Booth nodded in understanding. "Okay, so if this young woman's got a missing person's report on her, that tattoo would more than likely be noted in the record. Good. I'll get Hastert up there to call it in and have someone run sex, approximate height and age, and the tattoo through the missing persons' database and see if we get any hits." He pulled his cell phone from his pocket and thumbed a text message.

"Hastert's here?" Brennan asked, surprised, as Booth sent the text message. "I didn't know that. When did he get here?"

"He actually was the first agent on scene, Bones," he said.

"So?" Brennan asked. "What does it matter if he was here first? The nature of the case clearly requires the expertise of the Jeffersonian, so that pucks it to you immediately, right, Booth?"

Chuckling, Booth said, "'Punt,' Bones. It's 'punt,' not 'puck.'"

"'Punt,' 'puck,' what's the difference? They're both appropriate athletic terms that convey a type of forward movement, Booth. Now, can you please explain why there's still another Special Agent on-scene when this case is clearly within our purview?" she asked, a bit defensively. "This is _our _case. The last thing we need is—"

"Whoa," Booth said, holding up his hand. "Simmer down there, Bones. Hastert's not the lead on this case—I am, okay? This _is _our case, alright, but he's here because he was the overnight on-duty Special Agent, like I said. So, when the kind folks here from the Park Police called at 5:00 this morning to report they'd found a body, he was the one FBI dispatch initially routed the call to, okay? As soon as he heard there were skeletal remains, he called me, and I called you." He cocked his head and gave her his wide-eyed, toothy-grinned look. "So don't sweat it, all right?" Booth had to bit back the original retort that had almost jumped out of his mouth, something about Brennan getting her panties in a bunch. A lewd voice inside of him perked up at the thought of the words 'Brennan' and 'panties.' _I wonder what kind she's wearing. The simple cotton kind again, or something more naughty? _ Another, sharper voice instantly chastised him. _Cut that shit out now, Booth. Come on!_

"I'm not sweating," Brennan said, slightly confused as she brought a hand to her forehead to see if any excessive perspiration had escaped her notice.

"Just chill out, Bones," Booth said. "You know I'll tell you when to worry. We're good here. This one's all ours. Promise."

"Okay," she grumbled. "I just don't like it when—" Her voice trailed off as her frown deepened.

"I know," Booth said, himself frowning at his partner's sudden shift of mood. "Come on, Bones. Don't make that look," Booth sighed.

"What look?"

"That one," Booth said, pointing. "That one that you're making right now."

"I was unaware—"

"Look," Booth said. "Stop worrying, okay? Vince is a good guy. He knows this one is ours, and he isn't trying to horn in on our show. Besides, you know that he's not the type of guy who would overstep his authority. He really just wants to help. I mean, we've worked with him almost as much as Charlie over the years, and he actually seems to be one of the few people at the Hoover that, for whatever reason, doesn't normally piss you off."

"Well, you're correct in that assumption, Booth," Brennan said honestly. "Agent Hastert is a highly competent individual who isn't as presumptive or as bossy as most of the people I've encountered over the years who've clearly used charm, blatant manipulation, and/or overstated credentials to obtain employment at and advancement within the FBI."

Booth rolled his eyes and refused to take the bait. His phone chirped to notify him of an incoming text. Glancing down at the screen, he said, "Hastert's on it." Looking over at the find site some fifty yards upstream, he asked her, "So, how's it coming prying that poor girl out of the muck?"

Brennan sighed as she looked over in the direction of where Cam and Hodgins were still working on the remains. "Slowly, unfortunately," she said. "We may just have to dig her out and remove the rest of the hard-packed humus from the bones at the lab. We're going to keep trying, but it's very difficult."

Booth shrugged. "I guess that answers the question about why animals didn't yank her out to feed on the buried half of her, huh?"

"Correct," Brennan responded simply.

"Agent Booth!"

A female voice called out to him from behind, and he turned around. "Agent Walters," he said with a nod to the young blond woman as she jogged up towards him holding an evidence bag.

"What do you got?" he asked with a friendly smile.

Brennan raised an eyebrow at the change in the tone of her partner's voice and eyed the young woman skeptically. She was a blonde—but judging by the dark roots evident along the part of her hair, she was what Angela referred to once as a "bottle blonde"—and, Brennan had to admit grudgingly, rather attractive physically according to the standards employed by most of the U.S. male population. Her facial structure was pleasant, not too angular, and seemed to conform to the Golden Mean. However, she was short, her entire skeletal structure being no more than 160 centimeters in height. She also appeared to be slightly underweight given the normal body-mass index for her height. But, Brennan couldn't really be certain given her current apparel. The young woman was clad in the same type of black ballistic nylon FBI jacket that Booth wore, and the name patch sewn on the right chest said "S. Walters."

"Sir," she said to Booth, "Technician Martin and I found this," she said, holding up a sealed plastic evidence bag. Booth took it from her and held it up in the light, and examined the contents more closely. "As you requested, I brought it here as soon as we secured it in an evidence bag."

"Huh," Booth said. "Well, that didn't take as long as I thought it would. Look at that," Booth said as he passed the bag to Brennan. "Looks like we found one of your missing fingers, Bones."

Taking the bag from Booth, Brennan did not appear as convinced as her partner. Pulling on her gloves, she plucked open the bag and began to squint at the small bone that she had plucked out of the protective plastic.

Somewhat oblivious to Brennan as she went into squint-mode, Booth said to the young agent in a low, deliberate voice with a nod of acknowledgement, "Nice work, Walters. You've done a good job."

Brennan, however, snapped her head up as she made a face at Booth's unusually laudatory words.

"No, she hasn't," Brennan said, shaking her head in sharp disgust at the young woman as she waved the evidence bag in front of the two agents. "Booth, while I can't offer a positive verification as to what type of skeletal structure they might have originated from, I can say without any hesitation or doubt whatsoever that this bone isn't human. This," she said, holding up the bag to the early morning sunlight. "This is nothing. It's worthless. Completely and utterly useless." She glared at Walters. "You need to go back to wherever you were and keep looking until you complete the task with which you were originally charged because this is a waste of my and Agent Booth's time and attention."

Booth blinked incredulously, his jaw gaping at the gall his partner was showing in presuming to give a dressing-down to _his _subordinate.

"Bones," he growled in warning as he held up his hand to silence her.

"I'm sorry, but what exactly is the problem here?" Walters asked. "I was ordered to bag and tag any bones I found, and that's exactly what I did."

"Bag and tag any _human _bones," Brennan said, with a clearly impatient tone in her voice. "This is not a human bone."

"And, I'm supposed to know that again, how, exactly?" Walters said. "I'm an FBI agent, not a squint. My job is to find you guys the evidence, not to analyze it. If I wanted to be a doctor, I would've gone to med school, not the Academy."

"Unbelievable," Brennan sneered with a derisive laugh. "Where do you get these people, Booth?"

The proud smile on Walters' face wilted instantly at Brennan's words and the young Special Agent glowered at Brennan. "I finished second in my class at Quantico," she declared, adding quickly a half-hearted, "_ma'am._"

Booth held up his hand. "Bones, just—"

Brennan grunted. "Booth, that bone isn't even human," she said, "much less a phalangeal bone of the type we're looking for." Turning to Walters, she asked, "Where did you find this, Miss—?"

The young woman swallowed nervously. "Walters—Special Agent Scarlett Walters," she said, her jaw set firmly and her brow knit in anger.

"Uh-huh," Brennan smirked. _Seriously? Scarlett? Who names a child after a color_? she thought. _What were her mother's alternatives_—_puce, chartreuse, or aqua_? "Where did you find this?" she asked.

"Over there," Walters said, pointing downstream. "Near that outcropping of vegetation."

Booth narrowed his eyes and watched the interaction between his partner and the junior agent, his jaw tense as he waited for the other shoe to drop.

Brennan shook her head and frowned. "Did you mark the location you where you found it?"

Walters gave a blank look and bit her lip. "Well, yes...I mean, basically."

"Basically?" Brennan said, her eyebrow arching in suspicion. "Could you be a bit more vague, please?"

Sighing, and doing her best to ignore Brennan's sarcasm, Walters looked at Booth and said, "We were so excited to have finally found one of the damn things that by the time I could get an evidence bag, I may have walked away from the _exact _location. But, not by more than one or two feet—"

"One or two feet?" Brennan asked, her outrage growing. "One or two feet is an incredibly large margin of error, Agent Walters. You have no idea, if this actually had been one of the victim's fingers, how much such a stupid mistake could've compromised the integrity of the forensic evidence in this case." Brennan stopped, looked over at her partner, flabbergasted at Walter's lack of professionalism. "Really, Booth. Even I've worked with Caroline enough over the years to know that she'd go into a set of epileptic seizures if she had to put you on the witness stand and have you point vaguely on a map when asked for you to show a jury where the bone was found. Any good defense lawyer would tear you a part with an asinine response like 'somewhere one or two feet from this location.' I mean, seriously, Booth, don't they teach basic crime scene investigative techniques at Quantico anymore?" Brennan asked as put the offensive bone back in the bag and handed it back to Booth. "Is that part of the curriculum an unfortunate victim of federal budget cuts due to the economic downturn?"

"Come on, Bones," Booth said, a pleading twinge to his voice. _Don't do this_, he begged her silently with a cross look. _Not today_. _Not again. _"Walters, can you show us where you got this?"

"Martin," Walters said, glancing again downstream where her technician colleague was working. "He marked the spot with a flag, like I said, but—" Her voice trailed off again as uncertainty crept into her voice and she recoiled slightly under Brennan's critical gaze. "But are you certain it's not a finger bone?" she asked, flummoxed that something that looked like a finger bone might be something else. "Maybe you're mistaken, ma'am."

Booth blanched at Walters words, and he knew he probably paled a bit as he saw Brennan's body language change. _Oh, shit. Wrong move, Walters. She's not gonna_—

Brennan's eyes widened and then narrowed as she said, "Unlike some people who missed their first day of class, or slept through it, I'm quite certain in my assessment, Agent Walters. So, no, I'm not mistaken. I _don't_ make mistakes."

"Come on, Bones," Booth said, his voice warm and soothing. "It sure looks like one to me—I mean, it sure looks like a human finger..." Brennan reached over and snatched the evidence bag out of Booth's hand.

Brennan glared at him in that minute, but bit her lip to stop herself from losing control. Instead, her withering look conveyed her thoughts to Booth. _Really? You're really going to do something stupid and doubt my ability to tell a bone's provenance, Booth? What the fuck? I mean, really_—_what the fuck?_

Feeling her already thin patience wearing even thinner and approaching the point of snapping, Brennan spun to look at the junior agent that had stirred so much of her latest ire. "Why don't you whip out that smart phone of yours, Miss Walters," she said. "Go onto Wikipedia and look up 'the human hand.' You might find it of some use. Because this," Brennan said, holding up the bag with a couple of shakes in the air, "is refuse." Walters shot her an uncomprehending look, and rolling her eyes, Brennan clarified, "Complete and total garbage."

"Fine," Walters said, placing her hands on her hips as she stared at Brennan. "Then, if you don't make mistakes, _ma'am_, perhaps you can examine the bone again and give me some idea of how the one I'm looking for is different from the one I found."

"Finally," Brennan said, "a useful contribution from you, Agent Walters." Plucking open the bag, she reached in and turned it over in her hand, inspecting it. "This looks to be a phalanx from the rear limb of a raccoon or opossum," she said. "The park is full of such animals. I'm not sure what this is, but it's sure as hell not a human finger. The bones we're looking for are at least twice as dense at this bone and the elliptical curve is not as pronounced." She returned the bone back to the bag, resealed it, handed the bag back to Booth, and then snapped off her gloves before she added, "Even within her exacerbated margin of error, I suspect if we walk downstream to where she found this, we'll find the whole skeleton if one looks as methodically and diligently as one should be when tasked with a goal like this one."

Booth cut her off and turned to his subordinate. "Agent Walters, can you show us where you found this?" he asked, holding up the evidence back demonstratively.

Walters' eyes lit up a little at his request. She threaded her hand through her hair, tucking a thick strand of pale blond hair behind her ear and tilting her head to the side, exposing her slender neck as she nodded at Booth. She let her hand run up and down the curve of her neck for several seconds, before she stopped and added, "Of course, sir." She then smiled and said before she began to walk downstream, "Right this way, if you'll follow me."

Brennan narrowed her eyes at the gesture, recognizing it for what it was from an anthropological standpoint—a universal signal of sexual availability and blatant solicitation. Brennan bit the inside of her lip, feeling the very last of her self control cracking, and, with a glance over to Booth, when she swore she saw a vague smile flash across his lips, the cracking morphed into complete crumbling. Setting her jaw firmly, she walked behind her partner as he followed Walters toward the location where she found the bone. She felt how tense her jaw had become, her masseter muscle drawing her mandible so tightly shut that her molars ached. Brennan shook her head, trying to clear her mind and focus on the task at hand, but she knew it was useless. Walters walked fifteen or twenty meters downstream and stopped, pointing to a place where a stick stood upright in the silt.

"This is where Technician Martin and I found the subject bone," she said. Brennan arched an eyebrow at the young woman's use of the term "subject," as if she had thrown in the word to make her statement sound more intellectually rigorous.

"Right," Booth said noncommittally. "Did you find anything else of value nearby?" he asked her.

Walters blinked and bit her lip as she searched for a response. "Well, no sir, not yet, but—"

Booth glanced over to Brennan out of the corner of his eye, then squatted down, taking care to avoid getting mud on his new jeans. He pressed his fingers into the the strand's hard silt and wondered how the squints were going to remove the body from the earth. He saw Brennan wander off some ten or fifteen feet away and watched her in curiosity.

"Keep looking," he told Walters tersely as he watched his partner stroll upstream in the direction they came from, her gaze focused on the ground along the edge of the ravine where the ground sloped upward away from the creek bed.

After a minute or two, with Brennan's gaze traveling across the ground in a systematic search, Brennan looked over and called out. "Booth!" she shouted, her voice loud as if unaware that he was only ten feet away from her.

"Yeah, Bones," he said, shoving his hands in his pockets as he walked over to her. He didn't turn around, but knew that Agent Walters was following him, and for whatever reason, he didn't acknowledge her as he approached his partner.

"Look, Booth," she said, pointing to the ground. He squinted and immediately saw what she was pointing to: a scattered pile of small bones, some of them similar in size to the one that Walters had found, but most of them significantly smaller. A small animal skull, perhaps the size of Brennan's fist, lay nearby turned upside down. "I'm not an expert in the anatomy of small mammals, but this looks like some species of the _procyonidae_ family, most likely a raccoon or an opossum. Given it's proximity to the vague location that Agent Walters indicated as the place where she found this bone, I feel quite positive that the bone in question almost certainly belongs to this skeleton." She paused, saw the way in which Walters was looking at Booth with a hungry stare since she didn't think she was being watched, and then muttered,"Which, if this clearly unqualified young woman had taken a few minutes to look around, she would have realized."

"Uh, excuse me, ma'am—" Walters interrupted her, her head snapping up at Brennan's comments as she narrowed her eyes, but struggled to maintain a professional tone. "But, I can assure you, despite your unkind and highly inaccurate words, I actually am quite qualified—"

"Clearly you're not," Brennan said, her voice soft as if disinterested.

"Come on, Bones," Booth said again, shooting a cold glare at his partner and pointing a warning finger at the young agent. "Agent Walters made a mistake, but that doesn't mean..."

"Sir," Walters said, her voice a half-octave higher than it was just seconds before. "With all due respect, I can speak for myself."

"Fine," Booth said, although the look he gave the junior agent made it quite clear that she was pushing him just about as far as he'd be willing to let her push.

Walters opened her mouth to reply, but losing her nerve to say whatever it was to Booth that she had planned to, she turned to Brennan with firmly pursed lips. "Look, I made a mistake, and for that, if I actually did, then I apologize."

"I don't care about any apologies," Brennan muttered. "They're superfluous, and a waste of time, particularly when they're insincere, as yours clearly is since it's quite obvious that you're only grandstanding to curry some type of favor with Booth."

Her fists clenching at her sides, for that was _exactly _what Walters had been doing, she flushed at being caught and so blatantly called on her behavior, in front of Booth no less. "Now, see here. I don't know what your problem is," she said, her voice dropping to nearly a whisper, "or what kind of short leash you have Agent Booth on that he seems quite content to let you abuse me like this, but I don't have to put up with this kind of treatment from anyone—least of all from someone like you."

Brennan took a step towards Walters, her back straight and her square jaw set tightly as she locked the younger woman's eyes in an intense stare. "Leave Booth out of this," she said, biting each word as she spoke. Booth turned and gaped at his partner.

"This isn't about Agent Booth," Walters snapped. "My problem isn't with him. It's never been with him. Just like it's never been anyone's problem when they've been assigned to his detail before. It's about you, Dr. Brennan. Just like we know you all like it because you always have to be the center of attention, the problem here is all because of you."

"No," Brennan said. "It's about your complete incompetence and insubordination, either of which alone would be more than enough justification to have you ejected from this crime scene and put up on report if it were up to me."

Walters laughed darkly. "Well, lucky for me, it's not up to you, is it?"

Booth swallowed and stepped between the two women. "Agent Walters, that's enough," he said firmly, holding his hand up to stop her from further verbal skirmishing with his partner.

"Sir..."

Brennan's eyes met Booth's briefly before she turned and leveled an icy glare at Walters. "You're excused."

"What?" Walters asked, the confusion evident in her face.

"I said," Brennan repeated, "that you're excused. Now, go."

Walters looked to Booth, and then shook her head, "I'm sorry, but did something happen that I missed where you thought that I take my orders from people like you?" Walters lowered her voice to barely a whisper so that only Brennan could hear her snarl. "You may be able to get away with bossing Agent Booth around, but I'll be damned if I let you treat me that way."

"Your tone implies that you possess no genuine remorse for your error, and I would hazard it a safe assumption to make that a troglodyte such as yourself misses a great many things," Brennan scowled with a deadly tone growing in her voice. "Furthermore, what do you mean 'people like me'?"

The young agent blinked and said, "Agent Booth is my field supervisor. Not you, _ma'am._" She paused, then seemed to debate only for a couple of seconds before adding very, very softly, her tone oozing malice, "And, I don't take orders from bitchy lab rats or squints...like you."

In response, Brennan narrowed her eyes, and in that second, Booth knew what was going to happen before she even began to speak, even though he had missed several of Walters' more colorful comments. He knew if he didn't do something quickly, Brennan was going to go off on both of them like a Saturn V rocket blasting off from Cape Canaveral. _Not a good thing_, he frowned. _Definitely not_. And, despite his earlier resolve not to spend another day at another crime scene playing referee for a moody Brennan, and in spite of his earlier hope that his partner would quickly lose interest in skirmishing with the rookie agent, Booth knew he needed to intervene before she—

"Now, look here," Brennan began. "I'm not sure who in the hell you think you are, but such impertinence combined with your clear incompetence makes it a wonder to me that you possess enough brain power to walk and chew polyisobutylene at the same time." She smirked in satisfaction as the young woman seemed confused by the chemical reference. "Furthermore, I do not need to subject myself to such inane prattling from a sub-par representative of an organization who seems to be using trained primates to populate its field units."

"Did you just call me a monkey?" Agent Walters hissed, her cheeks flushing a deep red in embarrassment.

Slightly surprised, Brennan cocked her head and smiled wryly. "Yes, although I am somewhat surprised you have enough intelligence to be able to make the connection between my use of the proper scientific name of a mammal and the more common vernacular term. Perhaps you aren't as much of an idiot as I thought, but are just being mentally obtuse on purpose for some illogical reason of your own choosing." She paused and then added, "However, just so there's no mistake, I would say the bad hair dye job on your follicle roots indicates that you'd be roughly equivalent to the common squirrel monkey. That particular breed is somewhat small when its skeleton is compared to the more dominant females of other primate species, so it tends to emit loud shrieks to get attention and differentiate itself in the wild—particularly when trying to secure a mate with whom she will engage in polygamous sexual relationships. The squirrel monkey is also, to use a descriptive turn of phrase that might make my use of the analogy to your own person clearer—loud, obnoxious, and relatively useless but for the place they hold in the rung of the ecosystem's evolutionary ladder."

"Bones," Booth said again, his voice pinched and crackling with frustration as his mind raced to figure out how to safely defuse his partner's growing anger. "You're out of line," he said in a low voice. Brennan grunted dismissively and lifted her chin as she awaited the younger woman's response.

Taking a a half step towards her before finding her path blocked by Booth's forearm, Agent Walters said, "Now, look here. I don't care who you are. I don't have to take this type of verbal abuse from anyone."

"I believe you just did," Brennan observed tartly, oblivious to Booth's warnings. "At this point, however, it would be quite appropriate for you to start screeching to get more attention—"

"Walters..." Booth warned, pushing her away with a gentle shove of his forearm before he stepped towards his partner. "Bones—" Grabbing her shoulder and pulling Brennan away from where Walters stood to give them a modicum of privacy, he shook his head, "Okay, that's enough. You better knock it off, Bones—right goddamn _now_." He felt his jaw tighten as his blood ran hot. "Don't do this to me, Bones," he whispered, glancing over his shoulder at the young Special Agent standing nearby.

Her eyes snapped up at him, as she hissed back, "She provoked me! You can't seriously expect me to just ignore that—"

"Yes, I can and yes, I do," Booth said. "Please, for me, Bones—"

Brennan, in complete and utter disbelief that Booth would side with Walters over her, shook her head. "No." She then turned and snapped, "Well, What are you still standing there for, Agent Walters?" Her lip curled as she eyed the young agent. Walters took a couple of steps back and then stood perfectly still, her body radiating fury as she waited for Booth to step in and defend her. Brennan couldn't help herself as she placed a hand on her hip, thrust out her leg, and mimicked the young agent's earlier pose. "Come on. You know you want to do it as it's your natural instinct, correct? Or, perhaps it would help if I explained it to you in more familiar terms..."

Brennan glanced again at Booth but didn't even consider stopping as she considered that Walters was yet another blonde in a long line of blondes trying to get Booth into bed. And, all of them—from Tessa to Rebecca to Scarlett Walters—all of them had pushed Brennan just about as far as she was going to go. She was getting sick and tired of dealing with, and decided in that minute, she wasn't going to do it anymore. Brennan narrowed her eyes as she said, "Come on, Agent Walters. 'Chop, Chop,' I believe is how Booth puts it, so…whenever you're ready to start attracting more attention again, we'll be here ready to hear you start shouting that high pitch screech of yours that I'm sure you're just dying to let loose—"

Booth turned back to his partner with an angry flash behind his brown eyes.

"Bones," he said, his jaw rigid as he felt his fury bubble up from inside of him. "This is not your place," he warned her. "You're way out of bounds, Bones. Way outta goddamn bounds. And, you need to cut it the fuck out now."

Agent Walters stood there watching her supervising Special Agent and his scientist partner exchange heated words that she could not quite hear clearly. Booth, not one for being watched too closely, turned around and shot her a dark look. "I'll come talk to you later, okay, Agent Walters? You've got a job to do. So, go do it." He paused, then remembered himself and called out to her with a modicum of warmth as she turned to walk away. "If you find something, mark the find site with a flag, bag it up, tag it, and bring it to me immediately. Got that? Flag it, bag it, tag it, and bring it to me." With a quick glance to his partner he added, "Any skeletal remains of any kind or description will be personally delivered by me to Dr. Brennan here for disposition."

"Okay," Walters said, nodding obediently and casting a dark glare at Brennan as she turned on the heel of her boot and walked away from the pair.

Fists clenching in anger, Brennan shook her head as she saw Walters' look. For a moment, she hesitated and began to step forward to follow the agent. She had barely registered the thought and had just started to order her body forward, when as quickly she had started to take that first step, she was stopped cold in her tracks. Booth had put a firm hand on her shoulder, causing Brennan to look over and see why she wasn't moving. Several seconds passed as she struggled to wrench her shoulder free from his tight grasp.

As soon as Agent Walters was out of earshot, Booth loosened his hand and turned to Brennan. "Now, look, you've gone way too far this time. You chewed out that poor newbie agent for an honest, simple mistake."

"'Poor newbie'?" Brennan asked, in complete and utter shock at Booth's words, unaware he had missed some of Walters' more colorful quips. "You're fucking kidding me, right, Booth?"

"No, I'm not, Bones—"

"A simple mistake?" Brennan snapped. "You think that stupid, poor, poor newbie made just a simple mistake, Booth? Really?"

"Yes."

"Unbelievable, but fine," Brennan with her anger barely remaining in check as she continued. "She's may be new, but she knew _exactly _what she was doing, Booth. She was trying to use this situation to her own personal advantage. We're looking for human remains, Booth, but she trotted over here with a raccoon toe and expected you to drop everything to praise her for it, which you seemed all too ready and willing to do."

"What?" Booth barked. He took a deep breath and continued, trying to tamp down his growing fury. "I expressly directed them to do what they could and, if they find anything that in any way resembles human bones, especially finger bones, to mark its location, bag it very carefully, and to promptly bring their finds to me. Then, you would be able to quickly study them and, confirm whether they are in fact human, and then do your thing to determine age, sex, height and any identifying features. Agent Walters was just doing what I told her to do."

"She's an incompetent moron," Brennan spat. "I can't believe she even got through Quantico, much less finished at the top of her class. Anyone with a basic working knowledge of—"

"Hey," Booth growled. "We all have bad days. Maybe she's just having a bad day, Bones, because we can't all be brainiac Ph.D. scientists like you and your squinty friends. My 'people,' as you call them—they have training and experience in certain areas that you squints don't. We may not be able to distinguish a human finger bone from a raccoon's foot bone, but there's more to catching criminals than sitting in a lab reading x-rays, weighing organs, playing with test tubes and staring at bones all day when the rest of us have to go out into the real world, okay?"

"Go out into the real world to play at your damn and idiotic recess, right, Booth?" Brennan shot back. "Because, of course, anyone who wants to stay inside obviously can't be right when it's against someone who prefers to go out into the 'real world'."

"Why are you being such a pain in the ass about this, Bones?" Booth gave her by way of an answer.

"And, why are you defending her again, Booth?" Brennan snapped.

"Because she didn't do anything wrong, Bones!" Booth shouted back, stepping closer to her so that their noses were just inches apart. "I don't know what's gotten into you, Bones, but this is bullshit. You manage your team, and let me manage mine, okay?"

"I can't believe you're siding with her over me on this," Brennan shot back, hoping that some of the irrational hurt that she felt coming into her voice was hidden by her genuine disbelief. "I thought we're partners, Booth—"

"You are my partner, Bones. Always have been, always will be. But, that doesn't give you some blank check to go all batshit on my team." He stopped, took a step back and then looked at her as he said, "And, just FYI, the only reason I haven't had _your _ass ejected from this crime scene is because you _are _my partner, Bones. Walters made a beginner's mistake, alright? So what? There's no harm done. But, instead of kicking the shit out of her self-esteem, trust my people skills on this one, huh? It's better to correct her gently, show her what she did wrong, and then, next time, she won't do it again."

"Setting aside the fact that you're missing a the point here, Booth, I'll humor you and play devil's advocate, okay?" She snorted as she observed Walters walking away in the distance. "So, if we do it your way, and the next time she does it again, then what?" Brennan asked.

"Well," Booth shrugged. "Then, next time, you can shred Scarlett all you want." Brennan eyed him, and he quickly added, "Within reason, that is."

"This is unacceptable," Brennan said with a sharp shake of her head. "I can't work with morons, especially morons whose parents named them after flamboyant colors—"

"Ya know, Bones," Booth said, trying to tread lightly. "The trained primates that you said the FBI's using in its field units? Since I'm in charge here, that would kind of make me king of the monkeys, and since I know you don't mean that—"

"Maybe I do," Brennan said, finding Booth's attempts to reason with her the last thing she wanted to hear. "If you're going to be stupid enough to fall for her 'oh look at me, aren't I cute routine', then maybe the shoe fits, Booth." She stopped in her rant, and Brennan shook her head in disgust. She took a deep breath and, trying to bring herself back under control, lowered her voice. "And, why the hell is it _Scarlett_, now, anyway? She blinks those fake eyelashes at you, sticks out her physiologically absurd chest, and she's no longer 'Agent Walters' but Scarlett? Really, Booth? Seriously?"

Although Booth doubt she realized it, his mind flashed back to the prior week when he had tossed those very words at her twice. His brow furrowing in annoyance, Booth said, "Now, look, I've tried to be patient with you, Bones, but I'm not—I repeat _not_—going to have another goddamn horrible day like I did last Wednesday when you spazzed out at the last crime scene. So, get a grip and cut this shit out."

"Don't you dare," Brennan said, pointing her finger at him. "Don't you dare think you can tell me what to do."

"I don't want to make it an order, Bones, but the way you've been acting lately, whether you're my partner or not—"

"I'm not _your _anything," Brennan suddenly spat. "I don't belong to you. You don't control me, and you're a fool if you think you can."

Realizing they had suddenly shifted to something else entirely, Booth sighed. _I so don't need this right now_, Booth thought miserably. _Goddamn it. And, it started off like such a good day, too. Fuck._

"Now, listen, Bones. I've kept my people out of your way, because that's the way you wanted it, Bones. Because that's the way you've _always_ wanted it, alright? So, bottom line here is that it's the least you can do to stay out of my way, and let me handle my own people. Got it?"

Brennan snorted. "You wouldn't put up with that level of incompetence from a male subordinate, Booth," she said, her voice peaking loudly before she brought it down again. "I simply cannot understand why you would tolerate it just because she has long, blonde hair, mewls at you adoringly from those quite common and far too distantly spaced ocular cavities of hers while she thrusts those perky little surgically enhanced mammary glands of hers at you every five seconds to try and get your attention—as quite obviously, it would be very unlikely that someone of her proportions would have as large a cup size as she does."

"What?" Booth grunted through gritted teeth. "For fuck's sake, Bones—why are you so threatened by her? She's twenty-eight and a part of my field detail."

"Young and fertile," Brennan threw back. "I would imagine that she must be a relatively recent addition to your team since it appears that you haven't actually engaged in coitus with her yet," she said, her voice nearly a hiss." I doubt she'd be so eager to please and working so hard to secure your favor if you two had actually had actually already had sex." She stopped and then nodded at him, "What are you waiting for, Booth? Isn't it about time for you to trade up for another blonde sex partner that you can make scream with the goal of gaining the attention of your neighbors, anyway?"

Booth stared at her as if Brennan was speaking a foreign language. Noting that the agents and techs had started to watch the show they were putting on, and hoping that the distance between him and the assembling crowd meant that they might not have heard every word that had passed between him and his partner, Booth clenched his jaw and grabbed her arm. Dragging her further away, he squeezed her wrist hard enough that he hoped it would leave a mark. He then dropped her arm as if it were a poisonous snake and hissed at her, "You are so goddamned insecure it boggles the mind, Bones."

"You think I'm threatened by her?" Brennan laughed. "Hardly. However, it's obvious that she wants to leverage her physical attractiveness for career advantage in a paramilitary organization like the FBI. So, she'll do quite well sleeping her way to the top. It's also fortuitous for her that she got assigned to your detail since there's no doubt that she fits the profile of your stereotypical preferred cookie-cutter lay quite well..."

Booth's eyes darkened and his anger burned so hot his eyes began to water, causing them to shine like volcanic glass as he glared at her. "What did you just say?" he snarled.

"You heard what I said Booth," Brennan sneered. "I'm sure she reminds you of all the young women you slept with when you were at Quantico," she said.

"What?" Booth shook his head and rubbed his eyes. These conversations with her were becoming like a nightmare from which he couldn't seem to wake up. "I never dated anyone at the Academy. Aside from the fact that they spent five months kicking our asses mentally and physically, I'd never do something stupid like piss in a well that I might have to drink from one day. I keep my professional life professional, my personal life private, and I don't mix business and pleasure, Bones. I don't do stupid things like that—"

"Really?" she replied, daring him to correct her. Lowering her tone a bit, Brennan repeated her question, "Oh, really?" Brennan tried to convey to Booth all the intense anger that she felt because of him—and even more accurately, herself—for everything that had happened in the prior week, from her inability to compartmentalize to him waking her up before she finally achieved a workable solution that morning, in more ways than one.

"Yes, really, goddamn it," Booth muttered.

Her lips curling in a distasteful way, Brennan's voice lowered to a snarl as she said, "And, why of all people might I have first-hand evidence that such a claim on your part is complete and utter bullshit, Booth? _Hmmmm?_ Why do is it exactly that I find that particular fact so hard to believe?" She stopped and then pointed as she said, "I noticed that you wore your gun in a shoulder holster today, Booth. Don't think the metaphor wasn't lost on me since I know, for a fact, you usually prefer to go with a more minimalist holster for your gun before you thrust it home. But I suppose if Agent Walters is the next one through your bedroom's revolving door, it's probably a good thing to make sure your _gun's _protected so you don't catch any of those nasty STDs that some promiscuous slut like her is sure to have—"

Booth leaned in closer to her—their noses nearly touching—his eyes dark and the tips of his ears red with fury. He stared at her, and for a second, his mind flashed back to the last time they had been in this exact same position a mere week before, give or take twelve hours.

_He licked his lips and leaned in close, his lips just inches from her ear as he pointed his finger in her face. "You haven't been fucked until you've been fucked by me," he said, trying to ignore the tugging sensation below his navel. Just thinking about fucking her made him hard. He tried to will his erection away, refusing to let her see how much he wanted her. He put his hand on his hip, grinned his most charming, toothiest grin and whispered, "I'd ruin you for any other man."_

And, at that exact moment, Booth suddenly wondered if he was the one who had been ruined by Brennan.

Staring into her eyes, he wasn't sure if he was wanted to fight with her or fuck her, and it drove him completely insane.

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><p><em>So much for everyone being on their best behavior.<br>(You knew that wouldn't last long...)  
><em>

_Of course, there's more fun yet to come._

_::**snort**::  
><em>

_Folks, let me be absolutely clear:  
>Lesera128 and I <strong>live<strong> for reader reviews.  
>We love to hear what people think of our work.<br>_

_More reviews = happier writers = more updates._

_You know what to do, people.  
>Click that little review button down there.<em>

_Yep, that's the one._


	10. Chapter 10: The Ben Franklin Effect

**Cognitive Dissonance****  
>By: <strong>dharmamonkey & Lesera128**  
>Rated: <strong>M**  
>Disclaimer: <strong>We still own nothing, obviously. And, no, we haven't left the sandbox that we crashed quite yet, and we haven't really decided if we're going to or not. We've grown rather fond of it, actually. In fact, we think we'll stay a while longer.

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><p><em><strong>AN**__**:**_

_Thanks to everyone who has read and reviewed this crazy little fic so far. __We've been absolutely knocked sideways by the overwhelmingly positive response. (Seems the only real negative comments we've received can basically be summed up as "Why won't they just do it already?")_

_After this chapter, I'll be handing __over the chapter-posting reins to my coauthor, the incomparable __**Lesera128**__. __If you haven't put her on your author alerts, you need to do so immediately, if not sooner. _

_Firstly, because she writes some fantastic fanfics that you really, really should read (e.g. "What I Wish I Could've Said" and "Buried With The Bones"). _

_Secondly, because you'll need to be subscribed to her alerts to get notified of further updates, which will appear as Cognitive Dissonance: Part Two, which will contain Chapters 11 through 20 of this fic.__ And like __**Costly Signals **__before it, all the really good stuff you've been waiting for shows up in the latter half. __(And I mean really, really good stuff.) **If you don't do this, you will not be notified when we post chapters 11, et seq, and you'll miss out on the conclusion of this crazy story. **No further Cognitive Dissonance updates will issue forth from me. And you really want to know how this ends. No, really, you do. Trust me. __So, before you read further, go ahead and put my homegirl Lesera128 on your alerts (she appears as the very first reviewer of this fic, in case you're looking for a shortcut to find her profile). _

_Now, where were we? ;-)_

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><p><strong>Chapter 10 - The Ben Franklin Effect<strong>

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><p>The two partners stood staring at each other, both bodies rigid with barely constrained anger, Brennan with her hands on her hips while Booth's were clenched in fists at his side. They stood toe-to-toe, both of them shaking with aggression. Booth's eyes were aflame with emotion, while Brennan's had hardened to reflect her resolution not to back down simply because she'd been confronted by her partner's anger. Her own emotions blazed just as strong, and she refused to be intimidated or cowed by any man. As they stood glaring at each other, a hundred different thoughts going through their respective minds, their noses flaring as they were so close they almost touched, it was unclear who would break the stalemate and speak first.<p>

As Booth's gaze drilled into Brennan's for a split second, he pictured reaching out, yanking her towards him, and preceding to see how easily the Jeffersonian jumpsuit really could be removed in an explicit sexual situation. _Keep pushing me, Bones, _Booth thought to himself, trying desperately to keep the anger he felt from translating into a throbbing hard on, knowing full well that he'd already started to feel the usually pleasant tightening in the vicinity of his groin and trying his best to will away that unwelcome sensation. _Go ahead and keep pushing me, and I won't be held responsible for those actions. Especially, when we're gonna find out how shameless you really are when I rip that goddamn jumpsuit off of you, throw you to the ground, and start pounding into you like there's no tomorrow._

For her part, Brennan wondered what she'd have to do to press Booth into finally feeling _something _for her. _What do I have to do, Booth? _Brennan thought to herself. _You said it yourself. You like getting laid after you have a knock-down drag out fight. If this doesn't count, then what does? What do I have to do to get your attention... to have __some__ kind of personal response to me? Huh? What do I have to do to make you lose control? _

As Booth looked into Brennan's eyes, and saw her refusal to concede, he was both further infuriated and _incredibly _turned on by her at the same time. Although Brennan would never realize just _how _close she had come in that moment to making Booth lose control as she seemed to think she wanted, she almost found out when Booth broke down first and opened his mouth to fire another verbal salvo. However, just as he was about to open his mouth and make a rather lewd comment about wanting to use _her _to sheathe his gun, a hand grabbed his shoulder roughly, twirling him away from Brennan.

"Stop it, right now," Camille Saroyan said, a dangerous edge coming into her voice as she stepped between Booth and Brennan, a look of incredulous disbelief and silent anger clear on her face. "What in the hell do you two think you're doing?" She eyed Brennan for a moment, and the forensic anthropologist flushed and looked away. Glancing back at Booth, he too looked flushed with embarrassment, but, unlike Brennan, didn't break his gaze when Cam attempted to stare him down. Realizing that Booth was the more agitated of the two, Cam concentrated her efforts on him.

"In case you didn't know, we could hear you two yelling from fifty meters away." She stopped and swung to face Brennan, "Now, look. Do you have any idea of how embarrassing it is to have an NPS ranger come and interrupt my work with a set of remains because he's excitedly trotted over like some spaniel to tell me that you two are going at one another like you're in the first round of some twisted FBI/Jeffersonian version of Celebrity Death Match?" At this, Cam shook her head. She just wanted to be away from here and back with the body. Sighing, she said, "I don't know what happened here, but you two need to knock it off. _Immediately._"

"Camille," Booth said, his angry voice wilting to a pleading whine.

"Don't 'Camille' me, Seeley," Cam snapped, glaring at him in anger and embarrassment. "Of all people, I'd _never_ expect something this from you. I...I never thought _you'd _be capable of pulling something like this, but I guess I was wrong." Booth opened his mouth to retort, but quickly snapped it shut. He stuffed his hands into his jacket pockets, but Cam could tell he was clenching his fists in anger. Not really caring, Cam tuned back to Brennan, who already looked more contrite than the pathologist would've expected given the situation into which she had been pulled.

"And, you," Cam said, shaking her head at the forensic anthropologist who stood slightly back from the pair, struggling to regain her composure and self-control. "If I never thought Booth could ever pull a stunt like this, I never would've bet in a million years that you'd be involved in this, too, Dr. Brennan." She stopped, shook her head, and then continued, "Now, I know I agreed to give you a certain number of free passes in deference to your considerable knowledge, skills, and expertise, but this—_this_—crosses the damn line." She stopped and then shook her head again as she said, "No, scratch that. This doesn't just cross the line—it doesn't even jump over it. It eradicates it, Dr. Brennan—completely and totally obliterates it."

Brennan opened her mouth to reply, and then, suddenly as if the fight had gone out of her, closed it instantly. _God, what am I doing here? What's...what's happening to me? What am I doing? I don't...I, we_—_what just happened? _Her eyes darted over to Booth, but he had turned away from her, his breathing rapid and his hands still on his hips as he tried to get himself under control. _What's happening to us? _she wondered in confused desperation. Although Booth didn't seem able to meet her gaze, Cam was all too happy to stare at her with a look of intense censure on her face. Brennan, again not one to let herself be chastised, after several seconds, finally managed a response.

"I know," Brennan said, her voice softer than Cam had expected, thus, once again surprising her. Straightening her back, Brennan nodded. "You're right. I...was, no _we_were out of line. I was acting immature and unprofessional, and I apologize if I've caused any embarrassment to you or the Jeffersonian."

Out of the corner of his eye, Booth waited for the scathing, vitriolic response to burst through Brennan's lips. For a brief second, he wondered if he'd have to jump in when she started in on Cam. _What is her fucking problem? Why...she was fine before Walters showed up. Yeah, I've seen her smack down some more annoying assholes than that when they makes mistakes or, God help them, question her abilities. But, I've never seen her go postal like that before_—_in private, okay. But, not at a crime scene in front of the other squints_—

Then, suddenly, Brennan's final words before Cam had pulled them apart finally registered in his mind.

_"I noticed that you wore your gun in a shoulder holster today, Booth. Don't think the metaphor wasn't lost on me since I know, for a fact, you usually prefer to go sheathe your gun before you thrust it home, but I suppose if Agent Walters is the next one through you're bedroom's revolving door, it's probably a good thing to make sure your gun's protected so you don't catch any of those nasty STDs that some promiscuous slut like her is sure to have—"_

_Wait_, Booth thought. _Bedroom's revolving door? Promiscuous slut? Thrusting my gun home? What...wait a minute. Jesus, Bones. You aren't...jealous? Is that it? Are you jealous for some reason?_

He continued to look at her as she spoke to Cam, but didn't hear a word she said. Studying her intently, almost as if his obtuse obliviousness had vanished, Booth again was of two minds about how to respond to this latest revelation. _Is it really that simple, Bones? Are you freaking out because...you're jealous for some reason? _As Booth tried to process everything that had happened since he had picked her up a little more than two hours earlier, it was almost as if he had to go back and reevaluate every word, every action, every reaction with this new information. _What in the hell is she jealous about? That doesn't make any sense...but, it's the only thing that explains why she's gone nutty_—

As Cam finished talking to Brennan, slightly mollified by the forensic anthropologist's apology, she spun back to stare at Booth. It was clear from his defensive posture that he wasn't going to be as easily cowed as Brennan had apparently been.

Recognizing the look on her face for what it was, desperate to stall for time to work through his recent epiphany about Brennan's behavior, Booth raised his hands in supplication. "Now, Cam," Booth began. "Just, look, okay? You don't know—"

"Save it, Booth. I really don't care, and I don't want to hear it," she said, shaking her head sharply. Turning to look back at Booth's partner, Cam said, "Dr. Brennan, please go back there and assist Dr. Hodgins with—"

Cam's head snapped up when, instead of hearing Brennan meekly comply as she had anticipated, given the forensic anthropologist's genuine display of contrition just a minute before, Brennan laughed darkly.

"No," she said. "I don't think so, Dr. Saroyan."

Cam's eyes flashed as she looked at Brennan's words as a challenge to her authority. The pathologist had to resist falling into whatever quagmire of hostility that the pair seemed to have created among themselves. Like a black hole sucking anyone and everything near it into its depth, Cam had to resist the urge to respond to Brennan's curt words in kind.

Brennan, oblivious to Cam's words, continued speaking, her spur of the moment decision made. "I've completed my preliminary analysis of the skeletonized portion of the remains. Barring the _actual_—" She paused and shot a look at Booth before she continued speaking. "—discovery of any of the missing _human _distal or intermediate phalanges, it's patently obvious that my expertise is no longer needed here, so...I've decided that I'm going back to the lab." She paused to fling one more scathing look at Booth. His eyebrows narrowed at her, but Booth didn't say anything. Nodding once, Brennan added, "Now. Right now, actually." She paused to stare at Cam with a tilt of her head, challenging her to object. "Unless there's something else for which you require me, Dr. Saroyan?"

Cam's eyes narrowed as she again struggled to keep her own bewilderment, annoyance, and growing hostility in check even as another small part of her brain wondered when Brennan had turned into such a schizophrenic. "Fine. Fair enough, Dr. Brennan," she said, somewhat relieved that Brennan was going to save her the effort of tossing her from the crime scene. "That will be all, then," she said, raising her eyebrows as she waited for Brennan to take her leave.

"Fine," Brennan sneered, shaking her head and muttering under her breath, stopping for only a split second to shot Booth another scathing look before she stomped away without a further word.

When it was clear that Brennan was out of earshot, Booth sighed to himself. "Goddamn it," Booth whispered, as he watched her walk up the ravine and disappear over the tree-lined rise. _What are you doing to me, woman? What have you done? And, more importantly, why? Why here? Why now? _"Fuck, Bones—"

Hoping that the colorful metaphor he had uttered in that moment had been heard by no one else save him, Booth was sadly disappointed when Cam's head spun around and her gaze narrowed at him. Taking a step forward, she finally waggled a finger of warning at him. "Jesus, Seeley," Cam said, poking his chest with a pointed, vinyl-gloved finger. "I don't know what in the hell's going on. I don't know you've done to her…or what's gotten into her because of it, and I'm still pretty certain I don't want to know, but—"

"_Me!" _Booth asked incredulously. "Me? What makes you think _I _did anything to _her_?"

"—you two better get your shit together," Cam continued, ignoring Booth's words, "because this is too much. Seriously. Arguing in public like that? What's gotten into you two? I'd expect something like that from Angela or Hodgins or even Zach, but not you two. You guys are supposed to be the poster kids for by-the-book professionalism. I don't know how it's gotten to the point where it seems like you two were about to either come to physical blows or start grudge fucking one another when I got here, but you had better get a fucking grip on things. I'm sure I don't need to tell you the last thing I need is anyone from either the Hoover or the Jeffersonian's Board of Trustees breathing down my neck about whispers of sexual harassment or personal misconduct, right? So, seriously. Do whatever you have to do to fix this. I need my anthropologist back instead of whatever Sybil that's been impersonating her lately. Understand?"

Booth laughed as he shook his head. "You better not hear her say that you consider her 'your' anything, Camille. She's very touchy about possessive pronouns lately."

The pathologist shook her head and groaned. "I'm serious, Booth. I'm about to give you a very crucial piece of advice that I strongly suggest you follow to the letter. Do whatever you need to do to get you two back to a level set because we can't work this way. You two are behaving in a manner so unprofessional that it just... it _defies _description. And, you know that's not an easy thing for me to say since I consider myself pretty good with a turn of phrase." She stopped and then thought of the conversation that the park ranger had interrupted when she and Hodgins had been gossiping about the very topic of Booth and Brennan and whatever was happening between the pair. _What was it that Hodgins said Angela called it? _Cam wondered. And, then, after a minute, she fought back smiling in front of Booth as she finally recalled the verbal ditty. _Oh, right. 'Sexfest to shatter all orgiastic, polyorgasmic sexfest records. Hmmm... Hodigins is right. Angela really does have a way with words when she wants to_— "Okay, so maybe not as good as Angela," Cam suddenly mused out loud. "But, even still—"

Booth shot Cam a petulant look, and she shook her head as her friend refused to take advice when he really, really needed to listen to someone about the Brennan situation.

"Look, Booth. You need to cut this bush league shit out." She paused, and then sighed as she reluctantly continued, "Whether I like it or not, you two are the center of this little operation of ours. In fact, I really don't like it. But, when I took the job last year, I came to understand that little fact quite well." She stopped again, and then met his eyes before she continued, "Remember, Seeley? You told me that day that you were, and I quote 'I'm with Bones, Cam. All the way. Don't doubt it for a second.'"

"I remember," Booth finally grumbled. _Only too fucking well, _he thought.

"Well, it sure as hell didn't seem like you remembered it when I interrupted you two, Seeley. If anything, it looked like the exact opposite of you being with Dr. Brennan—"

_Wrong again, Cam_, Booth mused. _I can promise you, if you'd arrived about three minutes later, you'd have seen just how with Bones I actually am. With her, as in, with her in every way possible. Near her, on her, in her. You name it. _Booth couldn't help himself as a surge of renewed lewd images danced in his mind. As they did, another part of Booth randomly wondered how in the hell it was possible that he hadn't gone from a semi hard-on to full out stiff in the course of the confrontation with Brennan. _Luck_, he finally decided. _Pure dumb fucking luck._

"Seeley, are you even listening to me anymore?" Cam suddenly asked, reaching out to shake him slightly to get his attention.

Scowling, Booth immediately said, "Yes."

"No, you weren't," Cam countered, as she folded her arms.

"Yes, I was," Booth insisted.

"Then, if you really were paying attention to me, what did I just say?" Cam asked, as she narrowed her eyes at Booth in suspicion.

Knowing he'd been caught, but still unwilling to concede, Booth mumbled, "You said—"

"I said," Cam immediately snapped, feeling it was more important for Booth to take her counsel than be proved right in that he was lying to cover up the fact that he had spaced out. "I said that if you two can't work together, then this whole thing of ours falls apart, and that's something that I can't tolerate or allow to occur, alright?" She squeezed the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, trying to relax away the tension headache she could feel gripping her jaw and sinuses.

Again, Booth stared at her for a minute, but said nothing. Cam took that as a sign, knowing it was probably the best she was going to get from the FBI agent on the matter.

Nodding at him, Cam said, "So, just so that we're clear—knock it the hell off, okay? Whatever the issue is, you two damn well better work it out so we can all get back to normal, all right?"

Booth exhaled slowly through his nose, trying to defuse his anger using one of his old sniper techniques, and turned away from his old friend with one final glance. Cam, for her part, shook her head in frustration before heading back in the direction of where she had left Hodgins, much to his frenzied sadness, alone and working on the remains. "Damn," Cam said. "What a hell of a morning—"

Meanwhile, Booth began walking downstream towards where Walters and Martin were working. He stopped in his tracks, looked up into the leafy canopy that hung over the banks of the little creek, and pulled his cell phone out of his pocket as a thought suddenly occurred to him. He quickly dialed a number with a sigh. "You see what you're doing to me, Bones?" he muttered to no one but himself. "Great. Just fucking great."

After a couple of rings, Booth finally nodded in satisfaction. "Yeah, it's Booth," he said when the phone on the other end picked up. "Yeah—"

His shook his head, sighing, not believing he was doing this given what she had just done to him. "Good, you're still here. I need a favor..."

_Goddamn it. What the fuck, Bones? I mean, seriously. What guy in his right mind would make a call like this for you after what just happened? What kind of putz am I?_

"Yeah...Dr. Brennan needs to return to the lab, but I've gotta stay here."

_I can't believe I'm doing this. Damn it. Damn it. DAMN IT!_

"Yes. So, since she rode in with me this morning—"

He thought for a moment of how she rode him in the juicy fantasy he'd enjoyed in the shower that morning and how quickly things had degenerated since then. _This is not my fault_, Booth said. _Even if, for some strange fucked up reason she decided on today of all days that she was going to be the jealous type, none of this is on me. She's a big girl and makes her own decisions. This is all her fault. Not mine. _Shaking his head, Booth sighed as he listened to the response through the phone.

"Exactly. So you can give her a lift?" _Do you see what you've done to me, Bones? Insane. That's what __you've made me. In-fucking-sane. _

"Great." Booth paused and reflected for a moment. "Hey—yeah, just a sec. Ummm, when you see her... well, you know how she gets. It'd be better if you don't jump right out and offer her a ride, all right? She's...well. Just trust me. It'll go over a lot easier if you let her ask around a little and then—" _Of course it has to be your idea, Bones. Everything has to be your idea because you're a control freak, and you've made me into your co-dependent bitch. Fuck_—

"Yeah, I know it sounds weird..." Booth nodded, realizing how exhausting the past hour had been, and it was barely eight o'clock yet. _God, this is going to be a long day. Another goddamn long day on a day of the week I'm really starting to hate. Man, this blows._

"Hey, you have no idea, pal. You think it's bad just working a case every couple of months with them? No, no way, Vince. You don't get to complain. That's nothing. You've got no idea whatsoever what it's like to deal with these squints all the time..." Booth said, pushing back another exasperated sigh.

"What? That's really funny, Vince. Me becoming a squint? Hell no," Booth said, vehemently shaking his head. "I don't think so, but, look, if that ever happens, you have my permission to take me out back behind the woodshed and give me the ol' double-tap behind the head." He stopped, paused for a second, and then added, "And, maybe an extra two to the chest for good measure, just to make sure—"

Booth laughed at Hastert's reply. "Okay, great." He paused for a few seconds, his tone softening a bit as he said, "Hey, Vince. I appreciate you doing this..." _Total bullshit, Bones. Me having to call in a favor because you're being a bitch just because I called you on it when you tried to do my job instead of yours… total and utter fucking bullshit. _"No, I really do. It's a personal favor, and I won't forget it. You know I don't forget stuff like this, so just—thanks."

_God, why am I even doing this?_

"Oh—and, Vince? Yeah, one more thing...if for some reason she doesn't want to go back to the lab—" _Like I said, I should just order all new jackets now. Replace the "S. Booth" on my name patch with "B.'s Co-dependent Bitch."_

"Yes, please. Take her wherever she wants to go..." _Just as long as it's very far away from me_, he added silently.

"Thanks, Hastert."

"Okay, bye."

Booth exhaled loudly and squeezed his eyes shut.

"Agent Booth!" the high pitched call of Walters' voice suddenly cracked out in the air.

He reluctantly opened his eyes, and he saw that Walters was still some distance off, but that she'd spotted him. When she saw that he was alone, she plastered a huge, if fake, smile all over her face as she waved a new evidence bag in the air. "Sir?" she called out happily. "I think we've finally found something of importance." She gestured with the bag again as she continued to walk towards him. "Sir?" she called out with an easy smile clear on her face.

"God help me," he muttered and he glanced once more downstream at the young Agent Walters and the technician combing the side of the ravine.

And, as Booth considered Walter's approaching form, he squinted at her in the early morning sunlight. And, in that moment, he realized for the first time that her tits _did _look unusually large for her build—just as Brennan had said. _Oh, fuck_, Booth suddenly muttered as he not only realized that Brennan had been right, but what he had been doing to verify that bit of information—squinting. _Oh, dear God..._

PPPPPPPPPPPPP

On the ride back from the crime scene, Brennan felt agitated, unbalanced, unsettled, and generally not pleased with her current frame of mind. The entire day had gone from bad to worse, it wasn't even 9 o'clock in the morning, and Brennan wasn't sure how to deal with the entire situation. Booth's hard words echoed in her mind, despite the miles that put some much needed physical distance between them.

_"I keep my professional life professional, my personal life private, and I don't mix business and pleasure, Bones. I don't do stupid things like that."_

_Except for me, right, Booth? I'm the exception to the rule against doing stupid things. I was the something that you did that was stupid. Crazy, insane, and incredibly, incredibly stupid. Fuck!_

Forcing herself to take a deep breath, Brennan contemplated her options. Her initial thought had been to return to the lab_—_since she had a good two to three hours lead time on the rest of the team_—_and to sneak down into Limbo to gather her thoughts with a preliminary examination of a new case. It really didn't matter to Brennan what set of remains she examined, as long as they were unidentified, at least a hundred years old, had no connection whatsoever to the FBI, and she could be left alone. However, the more she thought about it, the more Brennan realized that she was in too fragmented a frame of mind to be able to even let the panacea of Limbo soothe her frayed nerves. _Limbo isn't going to satisfy my current level of agitation_, Brennan thought, as she stared out the window and watched the road go past. _I need more than that—I need…I don't know why, but I just need more than that. I need to get somewhere where I can be by myself, uninterrupted, and just think—_

Suddenly, a thought occurred to Brennan. She only took a few seconds to contemplate it before she realized that it was a good idea, and _exactly _what she wanted to do. Turning to face the driver's seat, Brennan spoke. "Agent Hastert?" Brennan asked as she looked at the older man who was driving the car in which she had managed to catch a ride back from the crime scene.

Her companion was a relatively quiet man, and aside from a few brief words to confirm that he'd be dropping her off at the Jeffersonian, neither had said much once they'd left the crime scene, but each seemed content to let a companionable silence fall over them. Brennan felt marginally grateful to the manner. Earlier, as if out of the blue, Hastert had appeared with a solution to her problem of how to leave the crime scene without having to face the indignity of calling a taxi. He seemed to offer Brennan a fortuitous opportunity when he suddenly materialized out of thin air and offered her a ride since he was leaving the scene to return to the Hoover to finish some paperwork before calling it a day. As a favor to Booth, he had already stayed long past the required time constraints of his late shift. Thus, he was leaving anyway and was happy to help out his friend when Booth called. Thus, when Brennan had stalked off from the crime scene—and Booth—in anger, and in so doing, had lost her original ride back to the Jeffersonian in the process of bolting from the site, he'd proven to have most fortuitous timing in offering her a ride back to town.

One of the older agents that Brennan had come into contact with off and on through the years, as Booth had correctly noted earlier, Hastert didn't piss her off as much as many of the FBI personnel she had come into contact with over the years. Brennan knew Hastert to be a quiet, even-tempered agent, and one of the few people that worked with Booth who actually annoyed her less than more in just about any of her normal mindsets. _Surely, that's a pure coincidence_, Brennan thought. _He just happened to be heading back from the scene at the same time I wanted to leave. It's pure coincidence…or, at least, it better be._

"Yes, Dr. Brennan?" he asked quietly. "What can I do for you?"

"I know it's a deviation from our original agreement, but would it be possible for us to bypass the Jeffersonian?" Brennan inquired.

"Is there a problem, Dr. Brennan?" Hastert asked, the curiosity clear in his voice.

Shaking her head, Brennan said, "No, not at all. I just would like to pick up my automobile. If I can return with you to the Hoover Building, I can take a cab—"

"That's not necessary, Dr. Brennan," Hastert said. "Agent Booth requested that I take you from the crime scene to wherever you needed to go, so it's not a big deal for me to drop you off wherever your car is."

At his words, Brennan narrowed her eyes. "That's very considerate of you, Agent Hastert."

"Not a problem, Dr. Brennan. I'm just doing what Booth asked me to do, so it's not a problem. Really," Hastert said. "Now, where was it that you wanted to drop me off again?"

As Brennan looked at Hastert, she quickly gave him the address of her apartment building. If she hadn't been certain in her choice to make a slight detour before returning to the lab, Brennan was more certain than ever once she had heard of how Booth had once again made a unilateral decision in an attempt to control her actions. _Enough_, Brennan thought. _This has gone far enough. I don't know who in the hell Booth thinks he is, but he's got another thing coming if he thinks he can control me. This is it. It stops now. Enough is enough!_

* * *

><p><em>Oh boy. How'd you like that one, huh?<em>

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